Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Labour Party
,
Rotorua
,
SMOG
,
Social media
,
Tamati Coffey
,
Tory scum
,
WhaleOil
We blogged on Wednesday about a rather unfortunate tweet from Tamati Coffey. The former TVNZ presenter and Labour candidate for Rotorua had made a rather unflattering reference to "Tory scum". Here's the tweet in question:
It's just as well that we took a screenshot, because it seems to have disappeared from Mr Coffey's Twitter feed; Whaleoil reports:
What page doesn’t exist?
That was the Tamati Coffey tweet where he found it was lovely to talk about Tory scum.
We've got some advice for Tamati, if he'd like to listen to it. If you make a cock-up (which as a first-time candidate, you may well do) own up to it and apologise, then move on.
But pulling the offending tweet without any acknowledgment and pretending it didn't happen is NOT the way to go. People already have a low enough opinion of politicians, and even former television personalities who aspire to be politicians. They don't need any excuse to diss them, so don't give them ammunition.
Social media can be a very useful tool for politicians or aspiring MP's to connect with their followers. But it can also turn to custard very quickly. Builders have an old saying; "Measure twice, cut once".
We reckon the same logic should be applied by politicians to their social media engagement; type it out and read it, then read it again before hitting the "tweet" button. It might save some embarrassment later in the piece from future SMOG's (Social Media Own Goals).
