Sarah Teather (Proxy Blog)

Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East
http://sarah-teather-mp.blogspot.com/

Proxy blog by: RobD

Launched: June 15, 2004

Format: Blogger.com (standard template)

Comments: Yes
Trackback: No
Syndication: No

This was one the first proxy-blogs created as part of the proxy blog project.

And - whoops - it includes 'mp' in the resulting domain name.

Information provided includes commentary on relevant movements, articles, appearances and speeches, an RSS feed from theyworkforyou.com and a Liberal Democrat newsfeed. The weblog author also reported on campaign materials and tactics during the 2005 General Election.

The author met with Sarah Teather, but was unable to convince her of the value of two-way communication via weblogs:

At the beginning of our meeting Sarah made it clear that blogging was not on her list of methods of communicating with her constituents, feeling her office in the centre of the constituency, the open door policy, street walking and surgeries make her easily reached. We did speak about the internet as a tool and how it is employed by Sarah's team for communication. Sarah and her team have been working on a Diary Digest mail. I'll be receiving that and posting it her. I'll carry on giving coverage, campaigning, commenting, criticising and perhaps occasionally complimenting the work of Sarah Teather here. Does this work out as a win for Sarah? I carry on doing those things for her - and she gets free publicity! Or does she...? With this blog riding the search results, it'll soon become the single most authoritative (as far as the web is concerned) site for Sarah Teather. (Rubs hands with glee)

So, no blogging for sister Sarah.

Instead she operates via the Brent & Brent East Liberal Democrats website (sarahteather.org.uk points to a personalised version of this same site). Here there is the occasional online poll... but that's it for visible interactivity. Her news and views are broadcast in a way that does not allow for feedback or comments, and the site even makes life difficult for people who wish to find specific information via search engines (the sites uses frames and often switches between two URLs as it does so, which complicates indexing and ensures poor search results).

As a result... here's the important bit... someone who does not work in her office, who does not even support her party, controls the top search results for her name in every major search engine.

Posted by timireland on June 15, 2004 2:06 PM in the category Blogs: Proxies

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