An online debate has erupted over whether regional newspapers were “duped” into running articles by David Cameron praising their respective patches.
As reported on HTFP today, The Yorkshire Post refused to carry the piece by the PM on the grounds that he had failed to respond to questions about flood prevention policy.
Several other regional dailies did however carry similar by-lined pieces, all beginning with the words “I love” followed by the name of the county or region, and designed to promote English Tourism Week.
The Post carried a comment piece explaining its decision which was headlined: “How David Cameron’s PR team duped newspapers across the country with generic love letters.”
Comment editor Tom Richmond accused No 10 of mounting a “sham media operation” and described the articles as a “carpet bomb PR drop.”
But writing on his personal blog, Trinity Mirror Regionals digital director David Higgerson denied that the papers that carried the piece had been “duped.”
David cited the coverage in the Eastern Daily Press, which far from carrying the PM’s article uncritically actually highlighted a spelling error in it.
Intending to praise the Norfolk beauty spot of Holkham, Mr Cameron’s piece had namechecked Holcombe, which is actually in Devon.
Wrote David: “Bravo the YP for calling out the double standards of the Conservative government in its attitude towards Yorkshire.
“But I really don’t see how the rest of the regional press was duped, because the evidence simply isn’t there.”
KM Group editorial director Ian Carter also questioned the YP’s use of “duped,” saying none of the papers that ran the piece really thought Mr Cameron had “sweated over a feature just for them.”
However Jo Wadsworth, the former web editor of Brighton daily The Argus who is now editing hyperlocal site Brighton and Hove News, said the papers had been duped, because No 10 had presented the pieces as having been written by Mr Cameron personally.
Responding to David’s piece, Jo tweeted: “Usually I agree with everything you write David, but this time – yes, a lot of them were duped.”
Jo added: “They uncritically ran piece of PR fluff from PM who treated regional press abysmally in the GE.”
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Not so sure about ‘duped,’ more a case of automatically printing ready-made UGC to fill space instead of providing real news.
Good on the YP, I say!!
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Number 10 has been sending out these things for years — Tony Blair used to do it — so if anybody’s been ‘duped’ they’ve not been paying attention. More showboating from the increasingly fatuous Yorkshire Post.
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The former web editor of Brighton daily … said the papers had been duped, because No 10 had presented the pieces as having been written by Mr Cameron personally.] Really? Editors who swallowed that might, perhaps, be in the wrong business.
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The Yorkshire Post is rivaling the Liverpool Echo for inflated self-importance. Of course nobody was duped, so I suggest they stop blowing smoke up themselves. Shallow showboating from a shallow company.
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Never a good sign when editors think they should be making the headlines rather than writing them, especially when it’s a complete non-story. At the very least it’s just squirmingly self-important and very naive of the Post. Perhaps time to go back to basics and report genuine local news. Just a thought.
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@Rambler: and who else is going to be making the headlines on a website devoted to news from the regional press?
Returning to the subject, to be fair to those who printed this toss, duped or otherwise, they’re not the only ones. In a previous life I used to write acres of this sort of guff for the red-tops, bylined to some Cabinet minister or other, and they lapped it up.
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Do these editors really believe Cameron penned these pieces on his own tablet? For crying out loud, even local council leader quotes are made up by press officers.
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Does Mr Higgerson know if Trinity Mirror published similar cut n paste guff?
“No-one billed it as a searing insight or exclusive.”
Perhaps even as an exclusive, or searing insight?
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If the Post is proud at having spotted this was a PR trick, then the Post really has led a charmed life.
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