Fianna Fail Hypocrisy

dvpower

LoveDucati2 wrote: »

Typical FF.

The Country is in ****e and they can't make a decision to save their lives.

Lets get team Obama involved.

Now that's Criticism We Can Believe In!

Scofflaw

dvpower wrote: »

That's not to say that no Irish Company was evaluated. We don't know what the procurment process was. We don't even know that there was a direct contractual relationship between FF and BSD. Perhaps BDS were contracted by Strawberry Media, we just don't know for sure.

Come to that, we dont even know when the relationship was entered into; it may have been way before the 'patriotic duty' call. There's lots that we don't know about this (private commercial arrangement), but somehow seem pretty clear that it involves FF hypocrisy.

That's a reasonable summary. You are asking for a lot of benefit of the doubt, but what you are asking for doesn't match what I'm hearing from either industry sources or the blogging community. Nor does it match with what FF themselves have said - in for example their invite to the party faithful it is quite clear that the event was the website launch:

Mr. Rospars is in Dublin to announce the formation of an agreement between Fianna Fáil and strategy and technology firm Blue State Digital to work on the development of the new Fianna Fáil website. The new website will be launched tomorrow and will develop further in the weeks and months ahead.

To mark the occasion Fianna Fáil will be hosting a presentation by Mr. Rospars on his work with President Obama in the Camden Court Hotel on Wednesday 25th February 2009 at 6pm. We would be delighted if you could join us for this event.

So, while I appreciate your kind defence of FF on the matter, I'm afraid your counter-speculation is inaccurate.

cordially,
Scofflaw

dvpower

Scofflaw wrote: »

So, while I appreciate your kind defence of FF on the matter, I'm afraid your counter-speculation is inaccurate.

Not quite that simple.

Your quote was from an internal FF communication to members.

The public invitation sent out by Strawberry Media to the bloggers they were trying to attract was quite different:

Strawberry Media are pleased to organise an open seminar with Joe Rospars, founding partner of Blue State Digital and New Media Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign.
Joe will be discussing the lessons of the Obama campaign, how it can be applied in other fields, and will take a Q&A on his talk. Attendance at the seminar is free.
This event is open to all, and would be particularly suited to bloggers and those interested in technology and politics. Numbers are limited, so please register your interest below if you are able to attend.
The event takes place at the Camden Court Hotel, Dublin City Centre at 6pm on Wednesday, February 25th. Click here for a Google Map to the venue.

No mention of FF here at all. That's why people were pissed off; they arrived at the venue to find it, to their surprise, was a FF sponsered event.

At least FF, in their communication, were upfront about it.

Scofflaw

dvpower wrote: »

Not quite that simple.

Your quote was from an internal FF communication to members.

The public invitation sent out by Strawberry Media to the bloggers they were trying to attract was quite different:

No mention of FF here at all. That's why people were pissed off; they arrived at the venue to find it, to their surprise, was a FF sponsered event.

At least FF, in their communication, were upfront about it.

OK, that's an interesting tack, because that's very much the tack that is being taken by FF press management - Damien Blake is being positioned as the fall guy. Terrible business, PR company screwed up, awfully sorry.

Again, it doesn't wash. You don't send out an invite on behalf of a party event with no party vetting. It's really not credible - and there's no quibbling about whether this was a party event. It clearly was.

That means FF saw both emails, and agreed that Damien's would usefully go out with no reference to FF, and Damien agreed to do that. In the event, that caused a measure of outrage, and FF are working hard to deflect that away from themselves. I have to say, at this stage, it seems to me you yourself are going somewhat beyond simply asking us to give them a fair hearing.

somewhat learily,
Scofflaw

karen3212

jimmmy wrote: »

Maybe we should look to our neighbours on the other side instead ( not unlike how other groups of islands in the world unite eg Japan, New Zealand etc. )
As Gay Byrne said, we should hand the country back to the British, with a note of apology. We are borrowing 25 billion ( after decades of EC handouts ) and still cannot feed ourselves at realistic prices - we have to go up north for our shopping. A letter from Dublin to London takes longer than it did 100 years ago, and the trains are no quicker either.

This is not specifically directed at you, but isn't that the same thing that FF has just done, let's get the foreigners in they know better? I definately think we could have handled things better before the crash, but every country is struggling at the moment to restore confidence.

I have to say this information about FF has made me feel physically sick with anger, and I almost didn't click on the thread cause I thought it was another raving rant about FF causing the whole global credit crunch. Unbelieveable.

dvpower

Scofflaw wrote: »

Damien Blake is being positioned as the fall guy. Terrible business, PR company screwed up, awfully sorry.

Damien Blake, on his website, is accepting full responsibility. If he is a fall guy, he's a willing one.

I pushed Fianna Fáil to organise a public event rather than a private, party only event. I put out the invite through Strawberry Media, and organised the event....

... The idea to have the public event, rather than a private one, was mine, and the decision to push it from Strawberry Media was mine as well.

Scofflaw wrote: »

Again, it doesn't wash. You don't send out an invite on behalf of a party event with no party vetting. It's really not credible - and there's no quibbling about whether this was a party event. It clearly was.

But Damien Blake does quibble about it being a party event

The event was 10:1 Joe Rospars to Fianna Fail; we’ll have the video online in a few days. Joe’s content wasn’t affected by us, we didn’t discuss it with him before hand, and he spoke for over 40 minutes as opposed to less than 5 from people from the party.

I'd be inclined to believe that FF saw it as a party event and Damien Blake was trying to broaden it out. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the party didn't vet the text of his invitations - the ones that didn't mention FF at all.

Scofflaw wrote: »

That means FF saw both emails, and agreed that Damien's would usefully go out with no reference to FF, and Damien agreed to do that.

I've posted a question on his site, to ask him just that.

Scofflaw

dvpower wrote: »

Damien Blake, on his website, is accepting full responsibility. If he is a fall guy, he's a willing one.

And an FF one. However, Damien's only real hope of retaining his personal credibility is to take responsibility. Unfortunately, it was also FF's chance to retain some, but obviously they preferred to throw Damien to the wolves.

dvpower wrote: »

But Damien Blake does quibble about it being a party event

Sure - the General Secretary of Fianna Fail (Sean Dorgan) just happened to show up? And happened to introduce the event as the launch of the new website by accident:

mamanpoulet wrote:

We get welcomed by a Fianna Fáil staff member who introduced the party General Secretary Sean Dorgan. Sean proceeds to welcome us to the launch of the party website and says that they were glad to have bloggers there and some Ogra FF members to hear more about Blue State Digital from Joe Rospars.

It seems rather more to me that Sean Dorgan was organising Damien:

Sean Dorgan comes over to tell Damien that they have to go to the next event. He’s possibly one of the most instantly offputting people I’ve ever encountered, almost sneering at the fact we’re bloggers or that I work with Boards.ie - it’s obvious that they don’t get it.

"They have to go to the next event"...indeed.

dvpower wrote: »

I'd be inclined to believe that FF saw it as a party event and Damien Blake was trying to broaden it out. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the party didn't vet the text of his invitations - the ones that didn't mention FF at all.

I'd be inclined to laugh at that - it's clearly not borne out by the facts. Vetting a launch invite is PR 101 - heck, maybe even PR kindergarten - because, you know, you don't want anything bad to happen as a result of confusion in the invite.

dvpower wrote: »

That means FF saw both emails, and agreed that Damien's would usefully go out with no reference to FF, and Damien agreed to do that.

I've posted a question on his site, to ask him just that.

Do you expect him to say yes? I'm sorry to doubt Damien's honesty, but I'll tell you why I'm going to. He has an update on his blog post - which is linked to the following PDF, clearly indicating FF's involvement, big logo and all. What he says is:

Damien Blake wrote:

Update: (26/2/09) Here’s the text of the Press Invite (PDF) sent to members of the tech press. It features an FF logo and details of why Joe was in town. He also discussed this on RTE Radio 1 with Mary Wilson around 5pm on the day.

Unfortunately, that's not what bloggers received by way of an invite - this is:

Strawberry Media are pleased to organise an open seminar with Joe Rospars, founding partner of Blue State Digital and New Media Director of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign.

Joe will be discussing the lessons of the Obama campaign, how it can be applied in other fields, and will take a Q&A on his talk. Attendance at the seminar is free.

This event is open to all, and would be particularly suited to bloggers and those interested in technology and politics. Numbers are limited, so please register your interest below if you are able to attend.

The event takes place at the Camden Court Hotel, Dublin City Centre at 6pm on Wednesday, February 25th. Click here for a Google Map to the venue.

There is no mention of FF in that. Why is Damien claiming that the FF invite for party members was sent out to "members of the tech press" when it wasn't?

FF were not "upfront" here by any stretch of the term. They were extremely underhand, which is the opposite.

regards,
Scofflaw

Dannyboy83

Before, it was hypocritical and laughable.
Now, with the current 'cloak and knife', it seems down right despicable.

It seems everyday, but especially for the last 6 months, we move further away from pragmatism and ethically sound behaviour.......and even from the mere ideology of a representative government.

We are hurtling toward some type of aristocracy and Fianna Fail are asking the electorate to believe they are infallible.

I am concerned.