A "new" way to sling mud
It’s no news to anyone who has been online at least once that the internet has a remarkable ability to make people act immature. (Of course, it’s not that they’re already immature, and the ‘net lets the entire world know about it. Oh, no.) And it’s no news to anyone who lives in a place with government that politicians are often ridiculous.
I never thought I’d read something worthy of Fandom Wank in my local newspaper. Life is strange sometimes.
Well, maybe not quite wanktastic. After all, a School Board member only called the mayor a “fool,” which is positively tame. There were also accusations of liberalism, which (in a snow-white suburban community) is dirtier. Still, on the whole I had to stifle the urge to call them all n00bs.
After I got over that urge, and giggled a bit, and lamented the State of Politics in My Town a bit, I started to actually look into the situation a bit. What’s most interesting about this situation is not the fact that politicians are acting like five-year-olds, only arguing over tax levies instead of who gets to have the orange ball. That’s old news. What’s interesting (enough so for the Big City newspaper to do a front page article on the phenomenon) is the medium of this lovely little discussion.
The whole exchange, which involved the School Board member, the mayor, a former mayor, and an alderman, took place entirely over e-mail. Which, by law, is public record: it falls under the “electronic records and communications” category. (The law also notes that not everything a public official does is public record; the distinction depends on context rather than medium. More on this later.)
Quite a few politicians have responded to this sort of thing by simply avoiding email. I don’t entirely understand this impulse. It seems too much of a head-in-the-sand reaction. Presumably, the reason is because e-mail conversations are quite easy to record and publish, perhaps more so than other forms of communication (telephone and “snail mail”). Perhaps. I’m not entirely convinced; I don’t know how the newspaper got word of the whole thing in the first place, and paper correspondence at least should be just as easy to track.
Regardless, the thing these politicians seem to be forgetting is that instantaneous electronic communication is not going to go away any time soon; it seems unnecessarily reactive to decide to ignore it. For one thing, it probably limits communications somewhat. One of the participants in this little e-mudslinging party even accused the instigator of having “effectively tried to shut down the progress of government by making people afraid to use e-mails.” A little bit of a slippery slope there (government has functioned, more or less, for millennia without the aid of e-mail) but he’s got something of a point. If you have to tell people you’re no longer going to correspond with them through e-mail, if you have to respond to e-mail on the phone or through conventional mail, that’s not efficient communication. Debate’s an important part of politics. (“Debate,” colloquially known as “throwing a hissy fit” or other less flattering terms, is perhaps not important but is an unavoidable part of politics nevertheless.) So, any medium through which governmental persons can easily get at one another’s throats should be left free and open. Sure.
The thing I take issue with is that everyone involved seems to see the e-mail as the problem. Hence the ineffective and shortsighted solution. Clearly, politicians don’t want their less-than-flattering conversations splashed on the front pages of newspapers. That’s fair enough. But let’s not shoot the messenger-wouldn’t a more effective idea be to stop saying things you don’t want printed? At the very least, be aware that what you do say is going to be public record, in the same way that a shouting match after a meeting, or an exchange of testy letters, or a series of vitriolic faxes, or a heated phone conversation, would be. Refusing to use e-mail will only make people think politicians are trying to hide from the public, and that belief is what prompted public record laws in the first place.
And so we come full circle.
Reference was made to “Taking it offline: Some elected officials are finding e-mail too risky,” Reid J. Epstein, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 30, 2006; and the Wisconsin State Public Records Law (Wisconsin Statutes 19.31-19.39).
I never thought I’d read something worthy of Fandom Wank in my local newspaper. Life is strange sometimes.
Well, maybe not quite wanktastic. After all, a School Board member only called the mayor a “fool,” which is positively tame. There were also accusations of liberalism, which (in a snow-white suburban community) is dirtier. Still, on the whole I had to stifle the urge to call them all n00bs.
After I got over that urge, and giggled a bit, and lamented the State of Politics in My Town a bit, I started to actually look into the situation a bit. What’s most interesting about this situation is not the fact that politicians are acting like five-year-olds, only arguing over tax levies instead of who gets to have the orange ball. That’s old news. What’s interesting (enough so for the Big City newspaper to do a front page article on the phenomenon) is the medium of this lovely little discussion.
The whole exchange, which involved the School Board member, the mayor, a former mayor, and an alderman, took place entirely over e-mail. Which, by law, is public record: it falls under the “electronic records and communications” category. (The law also notes that not everything a public official does is public record; the distinction depends on context rather than medium. More on this later.)
Quite a few politicians have responded to this sort of thing by simply avoiding email. I don’t entirely understand this impulse. It seems too much of a head-in-the-sand reaction. Presumably, the reason is because e-mail conversations are quite easy to record and publish, perhaps more so than other forms of communication (telephone and “snail mail”). Perhaps. I’m not entirely convinced; I don’t know how the newspaper got word of the whole thing in the first place, and paper correspondence at least should be just as easy to track.
Regardless, the thing these politicians seem to be forgetting is that instantaneous electronic communication is not going to go away any time soon; it seems unnecessarily reactive to decide to ignore it. For one thing, it probably limits communications somewhat. One of the participants in this little e-mudslinging party even accused the instigator of having “effectively tried to shut down the progress of government by making people afraid to use e-mails.” A little bit of a slippery slope there (government has functioned, more or less, for millennia without the aid of e-mail) but he’s got something of a point. If you have to tell people you’re no longer going to correspond with them through e-mail, if you have to respond to e-mail on the phone or through conventional mail, that’s not efficient communication. Debate’s an important part of politics. (“Debate,” colloquially known as “throwing a hissy fit” or other less flattering terms, is perhaps not important but is an unavoidable part of politics nevertheless.) So, any medium through which governmental persons can easily get at one another’s throats should be left free and open. Sure.
The thing I take issue with is that everyone involved seems to see the e-mail as the problem. Hence the ineffective and shortsighted solution. Clearly, politicians don’t want their less-than-flattering conversations splashed on the front pages of newspapers. That’s fair enough. But let’s not shoot the messenger-wouldn’t a more effective idea be to stop saying things you don’t want printed? At the very least, be aware that what you do say is going to be public record, in the same way that a shouting match after a meeting, or an exchange of testy letters, or a series of vitriolic faxes, or a heated phone conversation, would be. Refusing to use e-mail will only make people think politicians are trying to hide from the public, and that belief is what prompted public record laws in the first place.
And so we come full circle.
Reference was made to “Taking it offline: Some elected officials are finding e-mail too risky,” Reid J. Epstein, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 30, 2006; and the Wisconsin State Public Records Law (Wisconsin Statutes 19.31-19.39).