Social media - Politicians and mainstrean score easy goals whens there's no 'goalie'!

‘in the ‘old days’ before there was social media people sometimes let of steam by going around burning houses down - do you really want to put the clock back’

Having forgone the delights of Saturday night in the local tavern I was on foot early today and enthusiastically (really) involved in what TE Brown would have called ‘arts domestic’. In the time it takes a Minister to say ‘social media is a bad thing’ I had cleaned the house, cut the grass cleared the drain channels (there’s a storm coming next week) and been to the supermarket. You could say there was ‘a spring in my step’!

Late afternoon I settled down exhausted to muse on times past and as recorded in my earlier post watched Howard Quayle ‘giving it dixie’ about social media in his ‘State of the Union’ message last year.

I don’t know when Chief Ministers decided they needed to recycle some turgid tripe compiled by the Chief Secretary and his acolytes but its a process which has become boringly repetitive in recent years. I wasn’t a great fan of the first Miles Walker (Sir) government but (perhaps I was asleep) I don’t recall it constantly blowing its own trumpet.

After that there was Donald (Gelling) and my memories of interaction with Donald are fond one’s he had that unique characteristic for a Chief Minister he was also a human being.

Later on of course the annual mantra of ‘haven’t we done well’ from Chief Ministers built up and was built on. I think it was Alan Bell that gave the first ‘State of the Nation’ (I could be wrong I’m very old) address . Bell - love him or loathe him - could pull it of and you did get the impression that some of the content at least were his real thoughts.

However listening to Howard last year waxing merry with quotes from Abraham Lincoln you think ‘this has a decidedly hollow ring’. Tynwald after all is more like a dead dog than a post Gettysburg battlefield (no pun).

Of course the government hate it that social media canstantly calls them out. The mainstream meanwhile have to sit and pretend that what they are hearing and broadcasting is credible because to challenge might deny them an ear in the corridors of power. The only show in town therefore is social media and I’m getting a bit peeved that its always being portrayed badly not just by government but by some of the mainstream.

It's always easy to kick a ball into the back of the net if there is no goal keeper so I say this to the Howard Quayles, Alf Cannan’s, Tim Glover’s, and Paul Moulton’s etc of our world ‘pick your turf’. If you want a debate about social media let battle commence!

Let’s talk about the merits and menace of social media along with the merit and menace of government and the mainstream media. What’s that old adage from my Maoist days:

‘Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend’.

At the very least if you are going to have a discussion make it an open one. I’m up for it and at 72 going on 73 at least you’ll all have the advantage of youth (comparative) and a sharper mind (maybe).

However just remember this all you social media naysayers in the ‘old days’ before there was social media people sometimes let of steam by going around burning houses down - do you really want to put the clock back. Do we really want to dampen free expression so that the bottle is uncorked again?

Image: social media debate - bring it on says some old guy!

Bernard Moffatt