AI CHECK #3: Background search tool WhiteBridge

You never really know someone until you talk to them at 4am, an internet meme has it.

Even then, I’ve had some early morning conversations with people who have turned out to be absolute coins. 

Imagine if you had the huge responsibility to appoint someone to an important job. Yes, there’s the interview but I’ve known some people be brilliant at playing the interview game and then be shocking at the actual job.

There’s an AI for that. Of course there is.

This week, I’m trying out whitebridge.ai a tool that searches digital footprints online. It could be you, a potential employee or someone you are looking to meet.

As a wheeze I thought I’d try it out and then blog the results. 

I could have done someone else but I wouldn’t have been 100 per cent on whether or not it was accurate. That hobby painting Napoleonic War-ere lead figures? Well they could I suppose but how do I feel about that?

The website

The website is pretty straight forward.

It searches publicly available records for the person with social media channels, public networks and other public records.

The results

So I dive in…

After two or three minutes it comes back with the report. And 307 data points checked.

Overview

The overview is a broad summary.

Dan Slee is a prominent figure in the field of public sector communications, known for his innovative use of social media and digital tools to enhance public engagement. He is the Director at Dan Slee and co-founder of comms2point0, a consultancy specializing in public sector communications, offering training and consultancy services1. Dan has a rich background in journalism and local government, having served as a Senior Press and Publicity Officer at Walsall Council, where he played a key role in the award-winning Walsall 24 experiment2. He is also recognized for his contributions to the Guardian’s Public Leaders Network and his influential blog, which ranked fourth in Cision’s Top 10 PR Blog list3. Dan’s recent activities include promoting the use of WhatsApp Channels for public sector communications and analyzing the impact of AI on media and public relations. His insights and practical advice continue to shape the landscape of public sector communications in the UK.

RESULTS: Well, it’s all factually accurate. The Guardian Public Leaders Network stuff was more than a decade ago so hardly topical. Nor is the Walsall 24 experiment.

SCORE: 3 out of 5.

About

They got the about right. I live in Dudley in the West Midlands and there’s links to some of my social media. Not linkedIn which is interesting. 

SCORE 5 out of 5.

Career

They’ve got that I moved from journalism into the public sector and that I do thinks with public sector comms. I’ve worked in the West Midlands and London? Well, that’s half right. This is where serving on the Guardian Public Leaders Network comes in. It was a voluntary role. Things like this I can clear-up but others wouldn’t. 

SCORE: 4 out of 5.

Leisure and hobbies

Apparently, I like making tea, creating musical duets and support Arsenal. I don’t mind a cup of tea, sure but Arsenal? Eh? This comes from a post about an AI-post about Arsenal player. That’s a big leap of faith I’m not that struck about. 

As for tea, yes, I like tea but I wouldn’t like to be categorised as one of the nation’s tea drinkers. Had someone started a conversation prompted by the TikTok about tea making I’d be fine with that.

And as for the line about my liking to create musical duets they couldn’t be more wrong.

They correctly surmised that I like hiking from a TikTok I made of my son on the top of Catbells in the Lake District.

What seems to happen here is that the platform will take a fact it discovers and then draws a pretty hard and fast conclusion.

SCORE: 2 out of 5.

Negative media

This one was fascinating. It lists a series of scores around substance abuse, scandal and breaching professional standards. I was all clear on these and got a green tick. 

However, one box needed attention. Looking into it it was because I’d blogged about the danger of a fake profile on Facebook. Interestingly, it flagged this up ‘for review’ without coming up with a conclusion. From a legal perspective, I’d be a bit worried if I was basing a decision on a conclusion made without context. 

I’m also not on any global sanctions lists which is a relief. 

SCORE: 5 out 5.

Gallery

It pulled together a stack of images. They were accurate but I’m not sure what there is here that a Googfle Images search would not have found.

SCORE: 5 out of 5.

Cost

From £21.15 per search so its not something to chuck around.

SCORE: 1 out of 5.

Overall conclusions

After running my search I ran a couple of other searches that drew blanks. 

With more than 300 data sources there’s plenty of places to look. It will save time. There’s plenty to get your teeth into. But sometimes the extrapolation from very limited resources are slightly off the mark. It’s a starting point not the destination.

Probably useful as part of the recruitment process.

OVERALL SCORE: 3 out of 5

LONG READ: Mustard, too much choice and definitive data on how UK local media is being consumed in 2024

When I was a younger man than I am now I loved mustard.

Our local Sainsbury’s had a choice of four and I would buy them to experiment. After all, what mustard would taste good on a ham sandwich was quite different to a barbeque sausage.

So, when our Sainsbury’s moved to a new site four times as big the mustard choice also expanded. There was now 16 different types of mustard. There wasn’t just one type of Dijon mustard. There was four. And English, spicy beer mustard and three types of American burger mustard.

Choice now paralysed me and the first time I went I left without buying any.

What I’d come across in this is something academics call ‘choice overload bias’. This means that when there is too much choice your satisfaction can actually decrease. We are tormented by the fact we may be buying the wrong thing.

Communicators who are looking to reach a local audience are faced with choice overload bias on a regular basis. What channel to use when there are so many?

When I started my career in local government the channels were a hard to use website, the local paper, local radio and quarterly residents magazines.

Social media obliterated all that and there are so many more places to get information.

Cutting through the noise is hard which is why Ofcom’s Review of Local Media Findings interim report is so useful.

I’ve gone through their 36,000 lines of data for you so you can better navigate the metaphorical supermarket shelves.

Key findings

Local newspapers are in an existential crisis. This time they really mean it. Print weekly paper readership across the UK has dropped 19 per cent in 12-months. Regional dailies have dropped 15 per cent in the same period.

Not only that, but there has been a loss of 271 titles between 2005 and 2022.

We already have news deserts. There are boroughs in London without a newspaper circulating and the same can be found in other parts of the country.

We don’t want to pay for local journalism. Not only do we not want to pay we don’t want to pay for ads. Digital or otherwise. Ad revenue is pouring out of the hole in the newspaper’s bucket.

There are experiments with local news. A spate of email-first news services that cover cities have taken off but all attempts at building a new form of journalism over the past 20 years has struggled. There are hyperlocal independent sites across the UK.

Struggling journalism is bad for democracy. The Government’s Cairncross review into local journalism and other academic research all point to this. There is a link between voter turnout and newspaper circulation.

Yet, the demand local news as an entity is surprisngly strong. Be that local politics, events, weather, sport or traffic, weather and travel we want to know about it. All of us. Not just the over 50s.

Local news and current affairs is surprisingly of interest. Almost half – 49 per cent – of 16 to 24-year-olds are interested in local news in their area. I know. I’m shocked as you are. This rises to 73 per cent of over 55-year-olds. This may be the roads that are being built, the cuts to the leisure centre or the event in the park.

But local campaigns not so much. One in five 16 to 24s is interested in a campaign on somethinmg like crime rising to a quarter of 55 to 64-year-olds.

And yes please to weather. Maybe its because we’re British but the category of local weather updates was the most popular with people. Six out of ten of younger demographics were interested rising to 80 per cent of over 65s.

But how we’re accessing this local news has splintered more than I could have imagined. If its not local newspapers then what?

This is where this handy illustration comes in.

I think of it as a dartboard with your street at the centre radiating out to your neighbourhood, city, town, village then your county then your nation.

In your street, it’s WhatsApp and Nextdoor you plug into then as you go wider its social media, newspaper’s social media and then as you approach the region and country its TV and radio too.

I like how they’ve made this visual.

In your street or neighbourhood, WhatsApp and the neighbourhood site Nextdoor are important. As you move towards the town or village and up through the country to the region or country then other platforms become important.

We often forget about TV and radio. There are 39 BBC stations and 250 commercial radio stations and in Wales the Welsh language S4C station plays an important regional role. But broadcasting only comes into play on stories that will reach broad audiences on the edge of the dartboard.

Local news is being consumed by social media with local groups like Facebook community groups now the biggest single place. The secret to good data, I find, is that it can challenge your own experience. I’ve been an advocate for Facebook groups for a long time but even I’m surprised to see that nationally it is now in pole position for local news.

The BBC. I often say in training that making friends with your BBC local democracy reporter (LDR) is essential. They are a trusted channel and that single LDR can shape content for multiple outlets.

Delve deeper and you’ll find newspaper’s digital footprint is important. The data shows 17 per cent for websites and apps of news outlets. Confusingly, it adds 9 per cent to other nmews websites such as Reach plc’s Birmingham Live. Reach fill prettty much all the top 10 for web pages with the highest audience.

People have left print for the web but sill trust local journalism.

Younger people consume through social media. The stat given is 16 to 34s are consuming news twioce as much on the socials compared to adults aged 55 and above.

Podcasts locally? Nah. Podcasts have enjoyed a boom in the 2024 General Election coverage but with five per cent using them for local news this isn’t a factor locally just yet.

What the data says

Firstly, the Ofcom Local Media Review is a useful tool.

While it breaks down into age demographics it also breaks down if you drill deep enough into regional differences. So, if you’re Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, West Midlands, South West, London or wherever a bit of time spent to refine the data would be time well spent.

A word of warning.

There is a top level summary of 56-pages and the data sets of 36,000 lines you can plough through.

When you break it down

I’ve selected one of the many data tables to include in its entirity. As you’ll see, there are some surprises.

Q: What sources do you get your local news from? By percentage (source: Ofcom)

Channel16-2425-3435-4445-5455-6465+
Social media (FB, Insta, X)63 6359564436
TV294350546469
Word of mouth454641495459
Radio273232343229
Print newspapers171517202432
Newspaper websites & apps141923212623
Messaging or neighbourhood apps (WhatsApp & Nextdoor141923212623
Email newsletters152216182018
Local news websites222223192018
Search engines343739312924

Conclusion

I thought the local news landscape was fractured but I had no idea it was as fractured as this. Of all of iot, I love the dartboard graphic that shows how local news can feel very different depending on your perspective.

So, if its your street or neighbourhood its one thing – WhatsApp or Nextdoor – but as you move out its social media then TV and radio.

Given that there is this change none of us can take things for granted.

I help deliver training to help communicators communicate better ranging from ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER which is the broad skills workshop to ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS and ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.

GOOD READ: A crowdsourced holiday list of books to help you switch off

‘Switch off,’ they say when you go on holiday and then they give you an epic reading list of books about your day job.

Not in this blog post there isn’t. The only doctorate you should be studying for in your deckchair in Weston-super-Mare, Barry Island, Portrush or Troon is that of eating ice cream and playing crazy golf.

Here’s a book list of recommendations crowdsourced from the Public Sector Comms Headspace. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.

It’s split between fiction and non-fiction.

None of these are about PR and comms.That’s why they are on the list.

Non-fiction

PIER REVIEW by Jon Bounds and Danny Smith

“Two friends from Birmingham decide to settle an argument on which is the best pier by visiting them all. Part travel book and part history. This is THE book to read in a deckchair eating an ice cream.” – Dan Slee

Paperback £2.90.

LIFE by Keith Richards

“An honest and funny account of his music.” – James Turner

Paperback £9.09.

DON’T STOP THE MUSIC by Justin Lewis

“This is absolutely brilliant for reading all at once, or dipping in and out of.” – Claire Anne Hall

Paperback £9.59.

ROAR by Sam Quek

“I recommend for anyone that has an interest in sport. It’s inspiring and demonstrates throughout that sport is about much more than just participating, being good or even winning. It teaches discipline, hard work, resilience, team work, determination and so much more.” – Laura Beale

Paperback £9.59.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE by Bill Bryson

“A book based on his travels in Europe and it’s a sometimes laugh out loud read. So it’s an especially good choice if you have an European destination in mind.” – Vicky Croughan.

Paperback £13.59.

HOW LABOUR WINS by Douglas Beattie

“Really fascinating, neutral, and well-written, analysing Labour’s successes and failures at general election and putting them into context with what else was going on at the time. There’s even a chapter on this year’s win.” – Liz Wotsit

Kindle £6.99 Kindle hardback from August 22 £15.39.

FEET IN THE CLOUDS: A TALE OF FELL RUNNING AND OBSESSION by Richard Askwith

“Man gets obsessed with fell running, writes best book ever on fell running, which fell runners love, too.” – David Sawyer

Paperback £9.99.

RIDING THE WAVES by Jane McDonald

“For a more lighthearted read try Riding the Waves by Jane McDonald. This is an incredible tale of determination and self reliance and Jane being Jane it’s also funny. Top Yorkshire lass.” – Josephine Graham

Paperback £9.19.

MY MESS IS A BIT OF A LIFE by Georgia Pritchett

“If you want to laugh: My Mess Is A Bit Of A Life by Georgia Pritchett.” – Abbie Thomas

Paperback £7.76.

ALL THESE YEARS by Mark Lewisohn

“This has been out a decade or more but is the book I most enjoyed reading in 2024. A readable detailed story of the first years of The Beatles that ends in 1962. Essential.” – Dan Slee

Paperback £15.89.

BALL OF FIRE by Fred Trueman

“When I was a kid I was the most voracious reader ever and was at the local library at least once a week getting my quota and my Mom and Dad’s too, which were mostly sporting biographies and autobiographies. It’s because of the latter that I know more about cricket and snooker players of the 1970s than I’ve known of either since because I’d read their books when I’d read mine. Find yourself Freddie Trueman’s Ball of Fire autobiography and immerse yourself in a different world.”

Hardback (used) £3.78.

Fiction

THE SATSUMA COMPLEX – Bob Mortimer

“Simple, light and laugh out loud funny.” – Shane Space.

Paperback £12.

FIVE DECEMBERS by James Kestrel nominated by Nick Lakeman

“A hard-boiled detective novel set during in the Pacific during WW2 with characters who you genuinely miss like a good friend once the book finishes.”

Paperback £8.27.

SMALL WORLDS by Caleb Azumah Nelson

“Incredible, really moving with a lyrical writing but in a way that absorbs you. My favourite reads of the year when it was released. Nice and short too.” – Michelle McVeigh

Paperback £16.01.

I AM PILGRIM by Terry Hayes

“A total brain switch-off holiday thriller.” – Danielle Mason

Papetrback £7.99.

WHY MOMMY DRINKS by Gill Sims

“For pure entertainment, I love the Why Mummy Drinks series by Gill Sims. Something about the busy working mum frustrated by a husband who thinks a lasagne is a quick dinner chimes with me for some reason.” – Ruth Fry

Hardback £12.59

THE MANCHESTER MAN by G. Linneaus Banks

“As a chronic and uncurable Mancunian, I must recommend The Manchester Man by Mrs G. Linnæus Banks. Its a tale of rags to riches, set in the context of some of the real events of the world’s first industrial city. Its the ultimate place narrative.”

Paperback £10.99.

IN MEMORIUM by Alive Winn

“Having never read a book about war I found this so moving and as much as war is depressing it is ultimately a love story)” – Ghazala Begum.

Paperback£6.

ITCH by Simon Mayo

“It’s a ‘children’s’ book, but actually just a really well-written good read.” – Heather Pearton

Paperback £7.69.

FOURTH WING by Rebecca Yarros

“If you really want to switch off and like dragons.”

Paperback £5.50.

THE MARRIAGE by Maggie O’Farell

“Fantastic – evocative story of the doomed wife of an aristocrat in renaissance Italy.” – Danielle Mason

Paperback £7.93.

REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES by Shelby can Pelt

“It’s a family mystery centred on loss and reconnection, with three narrators, one is the sassiest octopus you’ll ever know.” – Laura Sanders

Paperback £5.

Picture credit: Seaside cuisine by Richard Croft used under a creative commons licence.

FUTURE TEST: What public sector communicators need to know about the first part of the COVID-19 report

I’ve a theory that everyone in the public sector has a to do list where emergency planning is permanently 9th on the list.

It’s there and you can show people but you’re just too busy to do anything much about it. 

Yet, March 2020 when COVID-19 struck planning list were obliterated by an incident measured in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of lives.

For public sector communicators, it was a tunnel of 16-hour days, stress, worry, burn out, worry and hands, face, space.

The COVID-19 Enquiry has published its first set of findings on how prepared we were to face the pandemic. Why have an enquiry? Because one day there will be another one.

I’ve decided to read the document for you because if its on your list at all it is probably no higher than 9th.

Here’s what public sector comms need to know.

Preparation was a shit show

Just how much of a confused shit show preparation was can be best illustrated by the flow chart which shows how things would work. 

If you look at the UK map from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and think your own country was better let me tell you no, it wasn’t. 

A confused web of bodies, duties, laws and responsibilities that nobody can understand least of all in an emergency. Within them were documents, the report says, with opaque language designed to deflect from work not being done.

Bad planning lead to more death

In short, the report says that more people died because thought in the planning stage wasn’t given.

There was no allowance for the fact that the pandemic would hit some parts of society more. This led to more people dying if they had a condition such as heart disease or if they lived in a deprived area or were from an ethnic minority group.

Lessons from the past were not learned and there was no space for dissenting voices.

In short, the report is clear that the planning process failed.

So what’s recommended?

The most headline grabbing is that the UK government and the three devolved governments need to create an independent new UK-wide body for responding to emergencies. 

All this would also see the current network of local resilience forums in England and equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland replaced. 

Once the new body is up and running exercises should be done tio test how effective they are and then lessons need to be adopted. 

But the problem is, governments don’t know what’s going on locally and the boundaries of these local bodies don’t always tally with boundaries for the NHS, police and other bodies. This needs to change, the report says.

So does the mish-mash of having public health representation on these bodies. Sometimes they are part of them and sometimes not.

Communicating in England and Wales

Of course, public sector communicators will be looking out for the word ‘communications’ in this document. 

Rightly, the voices of the bereaved are uppermost and can be found in panelled quotes in the document. This is really important as it helps decision makers remember just why they are doing this. I hope when it gets to it other patriots of the report will draw from the experience of public sector communicators.

With this in mind, one passage stands out. 

 The directors of public health, the public health workforce and local government have a critical contribution to make to pandemic preparedness and resilience. Their knowledge and skills are an important local and national resource to be drawn upon in whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience.95 They are in regular contact with the local population and therefore have an important role in communicating their needs to the institutions whose responsibility it is to prepare for and build resilience to whole-system civil emergencies.96 There should be far greater involvement of directors of public health and local public health teams in developing those plans. 

Those at the coalface in the pandemic have spoken to me about messages coming from the top down with little chance to influence them. After the white heat of Boris Johnson’s 10 Downing Street stay at home announcement the national message were least effective locally. Messages with local voices better suited to an area worked best. If this is what plays out from the report this could be a good thing. 

Are public health directors good at communicating? I’ve heard some pretty conflicting stories. Public health is a local government thing so prepare to step forward local government communicators with your best advice and your best diplomatic manner.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

There’s a different set-up in Scotland with a resilience division of Scottish Government. In Wales, there are separate processes. There’s not much in the report about communications for either country. Although Wales’ systems were called ‘labyrinthine’ so good luck in trying to understand how things work from a standing start.

In Northern Ireland, the suspension of the power sharing agreement which saw politicians absent themselves didn’t help, the report said. Infection rates more closely tracked with the Republic of Ireland rather than the rest of the UK which makes sense given the freedom of movement.

Whatever. The UK-wide approach to tackling the next big emergency will be simplified and UK-wide, the report says. 

Preparing for the next 

It’s entirely right that the document focuses on how the arms of government can be made to work more effectively next time. There’s lots in the report for emergency planning nerds.

The key recommendation is for a UK-wide independent statutory body for whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience. There’s an emphasis in asking what the third sector, public health and community consultation in the regular decision-making too. Presumably, this would be a communications task, would it? 

What’s worrying is that communications doesn’t really feature in the report. Maybe that will come. The public sector communicator needs to look through the document for places where they can put a hand up. 

One place they can try and use sharp elbows is where the report looks at the importance of what capabilities there are on the ground. A second is to take part in exercises when they are staged and be vocal during them. The report is clear that exercises need to be staged and their lessons implemented.

Mind, you it was nice to read the report’s war on jargon…

‘as jargon obscures communication rather than enlightens the reader.’

I feel this needs to be printed out, memorised and then quoted as a reason for making communication clearer. 

Of course, the worry is that emergency planning remains perpetually 9th on the list until the next time. 

AI: What does the rash of Gareth Southgate deepfakes tell us?

As public sector communicators we can expect deepfakes to try and throw elections… but as satire?

In the final days of Euro 2024 a rash of fake videos involving England manager Gareth Southgate were posted. But rather than derail a campaign these were so obviously fakes that it’s worth asking what’s the point.

Here’s one after England beat Holland.

Would an England manager celebrate drug use? Of course not.

The quality of the deepfake isn’t the best. The audio doesn’t quite synch with the video and it’s fairly easy to spot the joins.

So why did they bother?

For the LOLs of course. It’s a chance to spoof and to post satire. In the 19th century ‘Punch’ cornered the market with cartoons. Just lately, photo shop satire has even been part of the official political campaign such as this spoof of Rishi Sunak’s bad mortgage advice.

Of course, it’s tempting to disregard AI deepfakes like this.

But not so long ago there was a Gareth Southgate-related clip that really had me guessing. This was an interview with an Arsenal defender who had ruled himself out of being picked by the England manager.

This time it was believable and skillfully edited with cutaways in the style of a Sky Sports package. I’ll confess I went looking online for corroboration.

That video is this…

So, what does this mean?

The technology is there, getting better and bad actors need to base what they do in reality for it to really cut through.

BAD REP: The new Labour government are coming for reputation management and this is no bad thing

Change can be radical and the incoming Labour administration shows no signs of letting the grass grow.

In a few days time the Kings Speech will set out the new Government’s plans for the next Parliament and there’s plenty for public sector comms to think about.

For me, the most significant of the 30 bills expected to be listed is the long awaited Hillsborough law. In short, this puts an expectation of candour on public officials and bodies at a public enquiry. In other words, to be honest and transparent when things go wrong. 

This recommendation was first made seven years ago by the Government report into the 97 deaths into the football stadium disaster of almost four decades ago. It is high time it was enacted.

Why is this significant?

In very simple terms, a lack of transparency from some public bodies has led to justice delayed. South Yorkshire Police for decades blamed Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough disaster rather than reflected on their own actions.

There’s a catalogue of errors that reputation management has had a hand in.

What’s wrong with reputation management?

In itself, there’s nothing wrong with the comms team looking after the best interests of the organisation. Reputation management is presenting the best side of the organisation to the public. 

The problem is reputation management can label everyone who isn’t happy as the enemy.

In the NHS, the Francis report highlighted reputation management as one of the problems with the running of Mid Staffs Hospital in Stafford. Findings highlighted: “An institutional culture which ascribed more weight to positive information about the service than to information capable of implying cause for concern.”

The report into problems with East Kent’s maternity department highlighted reputation management singled out “denial, deflection, concealment and aggressive responses to challenge.”

The Lucy Letby murders also highlighted reputation management as one of the issues in the case.

Then there’s the Post Office sub-post master prosectutions.

Every organisation makes three types of decision

Let’s be honest. Any organisation makes three types of decision.

First are good decisions.

Second are good decisions poorly explained. 

Then there are bad decisions. They make no sense, they’re unpopular and lead to flak.

The role of comms in decision making 

Of course, the ideal is to be at the top table helping the decision makers and flagging up problems. But the world isn’t like that. So, the role of comms is to play back the online feedback to the decision makers. If there’s a 20 comments in rapid order calling the decision out do you need to better explain the decision? Or is this something for the organisation to reflect on?

The answer to this is often above our pay grade but we comms can help give information that will help shape their answers.

A more healthy approach to reputation management the Hillsborough Law introduces can only save lives.

It doesn’t need a disaster for you to start doing it.

GUEST POST: Glass eye and werewolves: council ‘walk-ins’ can baffle local journalists 

Many council comms people began on newspapers and know the Russian roulette of the walk-in. That’s the member of the public who wanders in with a story. Sometimes they have and sometimes they haven’t. Here’s an insight into what that looks like from the author Alex Morrison of an excellent book on the subject There’s Someone in Reception.

What should a journalist do when a member of the public walks in with a complaint about “the council”?

First, take a deep breath. Grab a coffee. Maybe cancel your next meeting. These stories are usually complex, and are often backed up by carrier bags full of discoloured documents. 

Take the man who walked into the Surrey Daily Advertiser in Guildford in the early 1980s.

The visitor was partially sighted, and reporter Alan Jones had been running stories about the lack of accommodation for disadvantaged groups in Guildford. 

The man said the council had ignored his repeated pleas for housing. 

Determined to help, Jones phoned the council there and then. 

The council’s housing officer asked Jones to describe the man.

Jones: “He’s late fifties… long hair, he has a white walking stick. Oh, and appears to have a glass eye.”

Housing officer: “Ah, it’s him again. He’s been claiming disability benefit fraudulently… Has he taken out his glass eye yet and bounced it on the floor? It’s something he does when he doesn’t get his own way.”

Jones ended the call and turned back to the man, explaining that the council couldn’t help.

The man said: “You don’t believe I’m nearly blind, do you?” 

Then he removed his glass eye and bounced it on the floor, to screams from the receptionists.

Recalling the scene, Jones told me: “It took a while to find his eye, give it back to him… and send him on his way. I didn’t answer calls from reception for a while after that.”

But what is the lesson from this story? Never trust the public? Assume claims against “the council” are usually unfounded?

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. My book on local journalism – which focusses on “walk-ins” such as this – contains over 100 stories, from the 1950s to the 2020s. 

There are no solid rules. Some walk-ins told unbelievable stories that turned out to be true (I just windsurfed from Swansea to Devon). Others told believable tales that turned out to be lies (someone shot us with an airgun – in fact these visitors shot themselves in a bizarre bid for compensation).

For council comms people asked to respond to such stories, things could be even more complicated. 

Should you lend the story credibility by commenting on it? If you know something’s untrue – or more complicated than the way it’s been presented to a journalist – can you quietly steer them towards the truth? 

Again, there are no easy options. 

In my own time in local journalism, a walk-in claimed the councillors of Crawley were werewolves.

Disappointingly (for me at least), the council declined to comment. 

There’s Someone in Reception by Alex Morrison is available in e-book, paperback, hardback and audiobook via Amazon. 

LONG READ: It was the memes wot won it and other lessons for communicators from Labour’s General Election win

‘A new dawn has broken, has it not,’ Tony Blair famously said as he addressed supporters at Royal Festival Hall in London as its new Prime Minister.

The Labour operation had deliberately waited until the first golden rays of the morning sun had reached over the Thames to brighten the shot that framed the 1997 Labour landslide.

Their approaches of message discipline and news management became the textbook of how to communicate. 

Yet, everything changes, as Take That once pointed out. In 2007, The Sun sold 3.1 million copies and the News of the World shifted 3.5 million. Today, one doesn’t exist and the other no longer publishes circulation figures. 

In 2024, The Sun’s intervention to support Labour with a lame football-themed frontpage that called for a new manager was met with general indifference and a shrug. It was a bulletin from another era. 

Eighty per cent of the UK population has a social media account where we will graze our entertainment and news will come and find you if its important enough. The very idea of cycling to the paper shop to find out what’s happened belongs in the 20th century. 

My General Election from a different perspective

In 2024, free of being politically restricted I volunteered to work on Labour’s campaign in Halesowen. It was professionally eye opening. 

My first General Election was that Blair Labour triumph of 1997 where I covered it as a reporter for the Halesowen News. Labour fought and won that Black Country seat that fringes the Worcestershire countryside.

As a reporter, the phone would be ringing with calls from candidates most days in the six months beforehand. In the last six weeks, we would have a theme and invite the candidates to tell us what they’d do to handle crime, the NHS, jobs and other perennials. One week, we even got each candidate to submit an example of handwriting with their permission to a retired company director who was the UK head of a graphoanalyst society.

In 2024, The Halesowen News, is no longer based in the town, featured the Labour candidate a handful of times. Print media was an after thought to the campaign.

This was the meme election 

But if it wasn’t local media driving the debate what was? I think I’ve got a meme that can tackle that.

Memes are sharable pieces of content that can make an observation, crack a joke or make a point. Agree? Hit like. Disagree? Fall into the trap and start an argument that will boost the original post with the algorithm.

Both Labour and Conservatives used memes as the sharp spear point of their election message. Activists were signed-up to spread local-themed and national messages across their networks.

Politics has long moved on from 19th century beer-laced election festivals to hustings to newspapers to the mobile phone that you scroll through. Had Blair, Churchill or Attlee being campaigning today they would be all across the meme.

The Conservatives had an app while Labour had a website with downloadable imagery. 

But for all the officially-shaped content there was also a blizzard of combative unofficial content that would never have got past the approval process. Reform have a downloadable profile picture that’s all about spreading the branding. 

The Sun boasted in 1992 that ‘it was The Sun wot won it.’ In 2024, if there was one thing more important than another maybe it was the meme election.

But…

This was also the anti-meme meme election 

Need a message? Here, have one. Then move onto the next thread. To counter that there’s the anti-meme meme. You’re making this point? Here’s a meme that pricks your balloon.

There was plenty of this in the meme wars that raged across the internet and in particular in community Facebook groups and Nextdoor.

Back in 2019, I ran some research that showed big ‘P’ politics did not sit well in community Facebook groups in the run-up to the General Election which Boris Johnson won for the Conservatives. However, small ‘p’ politics was often fine and the angle to approach the national issue. The person complaining about not being able to get a GP appointment was the wedge to start talking about which side of the argument you’d favour.

As the campaign went on, it was clear that even more subtle ways to get past the admin gatekeepers was needed. In particular I was impressed at the Stourbridge resident who offered the olive branch that this really was all about love and used the highly incendiary shot of Matt Hancock kissing an aide during COVID in breach of COVID regulations.

Nextdoor were particularly adept at throttling the algorithm on content that may have mentioned elections. 

This was the AI election (sort of) 

In 1924, the Daily Mail printed the Zinoviev letter. This quoted an emissary from the newly-formed Soviet Union that spoke in support of the Labour Party which was knocking on the gates of Downing Street. It alarmed Middle England. It was a fake. But the public didn’t know this until after the election.

A century later, there was no AI-generated equivalent that pointed an accusing finger at a Labour Leader poised to take power in then last few days. This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t AI if you went looking for it. 

The big warning that AI was going to flood our timelines with misinformation and disinformation didn’t land this time.

What we did see was a lot of ‘patriotic’ right wing AI art of Reform’s Nigel Farage and more racist content that was also called out. It was clearly artificial. But both Conservative and Labour also created memes that showed opposition figures in unreal scenarios. Labour using Rees-Mogg’s face to show what it would look like to wake up next to him if there was five more years of a Conservative government.

Was the Rees-Mogg image made with AI or just PhotoShop? I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. But that’s just it. It’s supposed to be hard to tell. It was definitely not real. 

There was also the fake TikTok videos of leading politicians playing and commentating on Minecraft. To be really effective in their manipulation they have to carry a grain of truth. This couldn’t have pulled the wool over anyone. So, harmless then? Yes, largely. But it does nothing for building up politics as a worthwhile and noble profession.

More worryingly, The Guardian pointed to one example of AI tools being used to manipulate audio recorded on a Ring camera. This footage was shot which captured Labour supporters calling to deliver a leaflet. The candidate who posted it alleged a racial slur. An analysis of the recording showed anomalies. 

This was the TikTok election

Big noise was made about the role TikTok would play. The Guardian have written this excellent balanced piece which puts the platform into context. Ten per cent of people get their news from TikTok and this could be a traditional broadcaster such as the BBC, a new entrant like ‘Oh, God What Now?’ or The News Agents or a citizen journalist.

Aside from that, the parties themselves were active creating content specifically for TikTok that looked and felt unlike video from other places. 

This was the podcast approach election

I heard an episode of Radio 4’s ‘The Westminster Hour’ during the campaign. It was dreadful. Set piece lines to take deployed against each other by rival MPs not yet famous enough to have won their spurs.

The only Leaders’ debates that looked anything other than painful was Sky News in front of an audience whose laughter stripped past the lacquer of pre-prepared interviews. I cannot think that the set piece interview as it stands has any life left. It has been sanitised to death buried with a green pharmacy cross on its grave.

Yet, the informal podcast approach taken by programmes such as Electoral Dysfunction with Beth Rigby, Tory Ruth Davidson and Labour MP Jess Phillips or the genre-defining The Rest is Politics with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart are far more engaging. 

It was the clipped-up news election 

So, if print media is largely irrelevant does this mean that journalism is dead? Of course it doesn’t. It just means that the news will find people in clips that are seen online by far more who watched the original. 

Keir Starmer’s stumble on Bangladeshi immigration cost his Party a big chunk of the Bangladeshi population across Britain, for example. Even the local journalism turned into sharable content.

And finally

If you think all this is just political communication and it won’t affect you as a communicator think again. Political campaigns, as I’ve said many times, are a petri dish for innovation. 

The memes played a role but so did other factors. I can focus on the digital element but the door knocking, data gathering and get the vote out operation was all part of it.

Several of these approaches with a degree of imagination I can see working across the public sector. History shows that new tools which are at the bow wave in an election often become firmly part of the toolkit.

GEN ELEC ’24: It’s not a TikTok election it’s a sharables and meme election

Two things stagger me about what I’m seeing for General Election digital comms. 

Firstly, the number of memes. 

I’m swimming in them. I bet you are too.

Secondly, the amount of targeted Facebook, Insta and WhatsApp ads. I had a look. Since the election was called Labour’s 77,632 ads are outscoring the Conservatives three to one. They are huge numbers.

I’ve read some pieces about this being the TikTok election. I’m on TikTok. I use it a lot. I’m going to pin my colours to the mast and say that this is wide of the mark.

Instead, I’d say this is the targeted sharable election.  

Let’s take the ITV News interview with Rishi Sunak as a case in point. 

Battleground: TV news clips 

First, there was the TV interview.

Rishi Sunak sits down with an ITV reporter and one almost throwaway question was centred around what the Prime Minister missed out on as a child. 

It’s a clever question designed to target Rishi’s middle class upbringing and public shool education.

There are 3.2 million viewers for the TV bulletin. But this is the start. 

Almost four million people saw the ITV News clip on X, formerly Twitter where Rishi confessed he missed out on Sky TV. 

A further three million saw the clip on TikTok while the same clip got 20,000 reactions and 500,000 views on the ITV Facebook page. 

Then it got chopped up and remixed by individuals and turned into spin-off memes.

People are not watching TV news bulletins from start to finish but the news is finding them as clips with lines from them as an ad. 

Battleground: Memes 

That’s the thing about memes. They often plug into something in the popular culture. 

They can make a quick point cheaply and effectively. All the more so because they are usually not branded.

The Rishi Sunak interview has seeped into the popular consciousness. While people across the country are going without food, heat and shoes the PM’s answer jars. 

Here’s a meme I saw on Nextdoor.

‘Only Terrestrial’ and the ET character is a play on the Conservative leader’s Sky TV confession. 

Party created sharable content 

What’s interesting, is that the political parties are also switching into sharable content.

What would have once been branded and on message is often now more subtle. 

Here is a Conservative-made official meme.

Yes, there is official messaging that apes the meme but you have to squint to see the fact that this has been published by a political party.

But what’s even more interesting is that political parties are creating sharable content that’s aimed at supporters to share.

Yes, supporters can like and share the Party’s page content. But more than that, they are being directly asked to download and then share content on their own profile, into Facebook groups, WhatsApp, Instagram and onto Nextdoor.

This election has been about the recruitment of digital foot soldiers who are actively going out into the communities they live in to spread a message. The simpler that message the better.

Given that trust in politicians is at a 40-year low its no wonder that politicians are not front and centre in delivering an election message. Just nine per cent in the Ipsos Mori Veracity Index 2023 trusted a politician. If you live in London, the figure is a third of that.   

The Conservative Party have an app called Share2Win where you can log on with your social media account which then posts the images you select. Every time you post you score points. Your performance is then measured against others in a league table and as you wrack up more posts you unlock badges. 

Labour have their own operation and I’d be surprised if the other political parties hadn’t cottoned on.  

But does a Meme on its own win elections? No. You need to plug the meme into something that’s happened in the campaign. If there is a crack then an army of memes will exploit that. 

Rishi and D-Day? 

Historians may say his stumble on the beaches was turned into a rout by memes.  

I entirely accept that there is no readily available data on memes in the way that there is for a Facebook ad.

But they have been everywhere capturing the mood.

Battleground: Meta ads

The eyebrows stay raised when you look at the number of ads created by the Labour and Conservative Parties on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

A visit to the ads library shows 77,632 different ads for Labour. Most have £99 put behind them. Many ads share the same text and images but with refined targeting.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives had 25,594 ads but often with more money added to each individual post. The Independent has reported that Labour are outspending the Tories which in its own way is astounding. 

Yes, there are more than two political parties in this General Election. But often the digital communications approach rom the minor parties does not have the reach or brown of their far richer rivals.  

CAMPAIGN TIP: How to plan ahead to combat the trolls

Have you noticed? There’s some campaigns that lights the blue touch paper with some people.

During Pride events supported by fire, NHS, council or any organisation there’s often a minority of trolls.

‘Why are you doing X’, they’ll ask. ‘It’s a waste of money, it’s the Metropolitan elite, it’s the wokerati and you can’t say anything nowadays.’

But, let’s be honest, its not just the rainbow event is it? There’s a shortlist that triggers the easily triggered events that can include Christmas, International Women’s Day, Eid, Ramadan, Easter and any religious holiday. 

If anything doesn’t look exactly how they look then it’s a problem.

The decision for a public sector comms person is quite tricky. Do you post about it or don’t you? I’ve heard of people actively not posting because they’re so worried at the response. 

I understand that but I don’t agree with it.

So, what do you do? 

Well, the first thing is to get a set of social media house rules. I’ve blogged about this before and it’s good to see these becoming more mainstream. 

However, there is something else you can do. Think of it as a planned response list.

Basically, this list brings together all the things you can say in response to explain what you are doing. But the important thing is to get your broad response signed off so you know where you stand and you’re not 

Forward planning for the win 

West Midlands Police plan ahead on their socials. They’ve been doing this this since the English Defence League’s first trip to Birmingham. Then the extremist group sewed misinformation about a knife attack by a gang of Muslims on a white teenager. It never happened but the fall out raised tension.

So, next time the far right protestors came there was an officer armed with Twitter in Gold Control seeking and destroying the information. It worked effectively and became part of their regular response. 

The result was, a duty press officer could shoot down rumours in real time without having to go through the lengthy process of getting each tweet signed off. 

On International Women’s Day for many years, comedian Richard Herring would actively seek out those men – and they generally were men – who asked sarcastically when International Men’s Day was. 

November 19, he’d answer and sometimes be wittily robust while doing it.  

Edinburgh Zoo won praise for politely challenging homophobic responses on their Facebook page when they posted about Pride. The response attracted a lot of support in the community and also led to a surge in on-the-spot contributions. 

Royal British Legion have been excellent about this in the past. Poppy Day can bring out the bigots with evergreen disinformation around poppies being banned. They plan ahead and take a careful look at the comments on their channels.

Often, I find that the Police are the most on the front foot of all against trolls. NHS people are the most reticent. 

Timing when you make the post 

Help is at hand. The answer is to plan ahead.

When the Pope came to Coventry about a decade ago the council posted the news late on Friday. When they returned on Monday morning war had broken out over the weekend between the factions of people.

Nick from Leeds City Council has spoken about posting at 7am. Thinking about it, there’ll be a moderator around for the first few hours. People will be sober, too. 

Leaving it to a passer–by

Leaving it for a member of the public to step into has worked in the past. 

However, sometimes there just isn’t a member of the public around who can be like the Green Cross Code Man and save the day.  

This should be a bonus rather than your whole strategy.

Draw up your own list of lines to take 

If you are looking to post a campaign on a topic that may spark a needlessly unpleasant reaction here’s an approach to take.

Ask yourself these questions ahead of time:

  • Have you done this in the past? 
  • If you have, what comments have been said about this in the past and what did you learn? 
  • Has an event like this been done by others and what did they say in response?
  • If you haven’t, what’s the worst level that people can potentially stoop to and what would we say and do? 
  • What tone do you want to set? 
  • What key points do you want to make?
  • Do you need to make some assets in advance? 
  • If you have a set of social media house rules, under that, what comments do you allow and what don’t you allow? And where’s the line that if crossed you can start blocking people?

Once you ask yourself these questions you can start to build a list of responses that acts as your armoury ahead of the event.

In particular, deciding the tone in advance is useful. It gives you the confidence to operate on the day. Inevitably, comments like these can land outside office hours or when senior people aren’t around. 

Do all this and you can better navigate choppy waters.

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