Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott praised the M.E.N's use of Twitter to cover council meetings.
John Prescott, who served as Tony Blair's deputy, said coverage of local council meetings was very important.
Journalists at the Manchester Evening News and our sister titles within the M.E.N. Media group have been reporting live from all of Greater Manchester's full council meetings.
Readers have been able to follow meetings with minute-by-minute updates sent by our reporters via Twitter and streamed onto M.E.N. Media websites.
Mr Prescott, who was speaking at a meeting of Labour Party Twitter users at Manchester Town Hall on Saturday, said: “If you are allowed to Tweet during Prime Minister's Questions, then you should be allowed to do it at council meetings too.
“I think it is a very good idea and it is very important. It's about the quality of the message that you are sending across.”
Click here to see our archive of our live coverage of council meetings so far
A self-proclaimed cyber warrior, Mr Prescott has been at the heart of the Labour party's online presence.
He said: “There are some people who are sceptical about Twitter but for me it is about getting the party to see that it is traditional campaigning in a modern context.”
The Hull MP, who will stand down at the next election, has been leading the Go Fourth campaign on the social networking site.
Mr Prescott was behind a 30,000-strong online petition against RBS bankers receiving their bonuses and his team started a viral drive against David Cameron's election posters.
Mr Prescott also cracked jokes with members of the party faithful at the meeting.
He said: “It was my son who said, if you are going to do this properly and become a cyber warrior, you'll need either a Blackberry or an iPhone. And since they call me Two Jags, I thought I'd have both.”
The meeting at Manchester Town Hall was called a Tweet Up, where members of the city's Labour community could meet in person rather than online.
It was organised by Rusholme-based Labour member Grace Fletcher-Hackwood.
She said: “I think it's a good idea to get people to meet in person offline. John has been very active in other events like this in Sheffield and in Leeds, so its great to have him here.
Ms Fletcher-Hackwood also organises #mobmonday, a unique plan to use Twitter to motivate Labour party members to canvass using the party's Virtual Phone Bank.
The campaign takes place every Monday between 6pm and 8pm. This week, the party faithful will phone canvass the seat of Tooting in South London.
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Showing comments 1 to 17 and replies | View All
thoughtful, East of Manchester (01/03/2010 at 09:06)
Laura Norder, Didsbury (01/03/2010 at 09:39)
And, re Prescott - I thought it was only 'lawyers' you hated?
Mark,Radcliffe. (01/03/2010 at 12:14)
Ran Droid, Manchester (01/03/2010 at 12:23)
You do realize they're only doing this as it's cheap? The Labour Party is almost as fiscally bankrupt as they morally.
As for the twittering of Council meetings, yes it's a good idea - but the technology to do it predates Twitter by some years, so it's somewhat saddening to see it happen only because twitter has become 'cool'
selfexiled (01/03/2010 at 14:01)
The clown of all clowns.
Laura Norder, Didsbury (01/03/2010 at 14:08)
Mark,Radcliffe
Councillors are elected representatives of the people, if you don't like what they do, stand for election. (But that would require 'bottle'... so probably not, eh?)
Better to just sit, carping and moaning on a newspaper website.
Anyway, what is MCC to you - you're in Radcliffe, aren't you?
Laura Norder, Didsbury (01/03/2010 at 14:10)
... but not while you're around, fighting tooth and claw for that dubious title.
selfexiled (01/03/2010 at 15:07)
Get off my case I am entitled to have an opinion of politicians who ruin our lives you are not entitled to slag me off, beware!
Black Flag (01/03/2010 at 15:34)
I don't like what armed robbers do. That doesn't mean that the only option I have is to become one myself and rob people differently.
d1v1s1onby0, Wigan (01/03/2010 at 17:31)
Most armed robbers these days have been laid off, since banks decided to make cutbacks and rob people themselves. :-)
Mark,Radcliffe. (01/03/2010 at 17:44)
Pop Tart (01/03/2010 at 19:16)
gladys rowbotham, Manchester (01/03/2010 at 20:44)
Let's not be fooled into thinking this is anything other than a bit of fun. It has nothing whatsoever to do with democracy.
The problem is that by its very nature the twittering is a simply a succession of soundbites and it is purely at the discretion of the Council concerned - an obvious disadvantage. What the Council can give the Council can take away.
What would assist the democratic process is if reporters would actually report on proceedings in the Chamber. Even better would be for Council meetings to be televised/ webvision - then we could see for ourselves what was taking place. Now THAT would be good for democracy!
salfordrat (01/03/2010 at 21:49)
Am I only only person here who sees how frightening this is? Okay, twitter speak is probably better in terms of journalism than, say, an Angela Epstein column. But what does the reporting of a council meeting in a twitter speak say about a newspapers attitude to reporting? In Orwells 1984 one of the key concepts was that we think in terms of words, and so as they deleted words from the language, or mangled words, then the populace became less able to think coherently about the world in which they lived. Is any of this going in?
On top of that, I seem to recall a few years ago, educators, journalists, and government figures railing against text speak as damaging to childrens growth and intellectual facilities. Now these idiots are reporting COUNCIl meetings in this babble? Meetings where issues impacting on our very lives are discussed? Okay, so they report in full format also (I assume) but this really is the thin end of the wedge. This newspaper seems to employ the barely literate as it is. How much do we want to be dumbed down before somebody says - ENOUGH!!
Laura Norder, Didsbury (02/03/2010 at 09:49)
When did Manchester City Council have its proceedings covered in Hansard?
And as for TV coverage... eh? Get real - can you imagine the complaints from the morons who would see it as a 'waste of money - what about Coronation Street/Eastenders' etc.
(I did reply to others, BF and the exiled one, (beware!!!) , but the MEN mods didn't go with it.) ;-)i
B V Flute, Newton Moor (02/03/2010 at 10:11)
gladys rowbotham, Manchester (02/03/2010 at 19:41)
This illustrates exactly my conention - the Council previously allowed radio broadcasts ofthe annual budget meeting on several occasions previously and then sudenly stopped it for the last one.
This is the action of a totalitarian state. What the Council gives, the Council can take. We need a right, enshrined in law, for broadcasting of council meetings. No doubt our trusted MP's will have an opinion on this. Comments please!