People who follow York Region politics are well aware the power of Social Media. Federal Minister Julian Fantino recently wrote an op/ed including a thinly veiled threat of legal action against certain Vaughan twitterers. The Mayor of Georgina is using a tax fuelled lawsuit to silence critics in his town. Bloggers in Aurora played a huge roll in the electoral defeat of Aurora's ex-Mayor in 2010.
In truth, this blog and others on the Internet have been critical of Mayor of Newmarket's job performance. It is really no surprise to see that the Mayor of Newmarket is taking to the blogosphere with a comment or two about social media. To be fair, let me acknowledge that the the Mayor has been active with social media. He has been on Twitter, facebook, Linkedin, and has his own blog for a number of years already. The same can not be said of many of his colleagues. These Councillors let their constituents down when they fail in providing basic communication of the 21st century. The days of using a town crier to pass along news is long gone.
In his blog, the Mayor whinges about "vicious attacks" and not having the opportunity for rebuttal. He frets about "inaccurate comments" and "skewed perspectives" and being the victim of a "bully". Some less observant readers may even feel sorry for the poor lamb of a Mayor who seems to have been terribly hard done by brutal thugs lurking within virtual dark corners on the Internet.
The more critical among us will recognize that with the Mayor's office comes certain perks. The Mayor's Twitter account has 3 X the number of followers as the one affiliated with this blog. The Mayor has a much larger audience than this blogger will ever hope to have. It is very likely that the Mayor could pick up the phone and speak directly with the Editor of the Era, the Toronto Star, or any number of media outlets. The man even has a weekly televised opportunity where he can speak freely/ Besides all that, lets not forget the Mayor also has access to a town hall staff with expertise in writing and issuing press releases.
The point being, if the Mayor actually believed there was any question regarding truthfulness or accuracy of anything written in this blog, why does the Mayor simply whinge? Why not present us with a formal rebuttal using any of the various social or traditional media outlets that he has open access to?
I think we all know the answer to that question.
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