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May 3, 2007
What's the point
The professional politicians continue their revisionist approach to the web continues with a new website to be launched today. Newscounter.com appears at first glance to be a slick right-to-reply website, albeit an attempt to apply a commercial business model to an area that blogging already covers.
Newscounter is a new right to reply service for people and
organisations to respond to controversial press stories. This should
stimulate debate about public trust and the role of the media in society
The site allows you to:
* petition to call for a response to controversial press stories
* Read a response to a story
* petition on which side of the story you find more persuasive
Newscounter is a limited company, established by Matthew Cain
and Nigel Clarke, two PR professionals.
A quick glance at the Board Members and Staff makes for interesting reading:
Nigel Clarke, former aide to William Whitelaw.
Sir Stephen Sherbourne, former Political Secretary to Margaret Thatcher.
Matthew Taylor, Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to Tony Blair.
Matthew Cain, ex-IPPR and aide to a number of Labour ministers
Actually, I'll take back my original comment, they're not revisionist, but simply attempting to make a profit from an arena where Bloggers have traditionally challenged the established media. And given that most online media outlets now support comments, what's the point in Newscounter?
Clicking on the "become a customer" link reveals all.
Have you been misrepresented by the media?
Are you anticipating negative coverage?
Then newscounter can help.
Newscounter provides people like you the opportunity to
respond to media coverage in full and unedited to get
your side of the story across on a public forum.
Contact Newscounter to request details of our rates and charges. We also offer a limited free
service for those who can't afford to pay such as private individuals or small charities.
Basically, cross their palms with silver and they'll publish your rebuttal of any unpleasant news stories. Not an exercise in exposing the truth or informing the public, just another media outlet and no more (or less) trustworthy than the original source. In fact, given their republication of the original story, I wonder if charging for rebuttal time counts as a form of extortion?
Posted by Clive on May 3, 2007 9:24 AM in the category