Mayor responds to press briefing row that led to media boycott

The mayor of Bristol has denied he has banned local democracy reporters from attending his fortnightly press conferences.

Marvin Rees claimed the reporters weren’t banned, but they “weren’t invited”.

A row broke out last month after a clip surfaced from a recent press conference, in which the mayor was asked by Bristol local democracy reporter (LDR) Alex Seabrook if he “saw the irony” in flying to Vancouver to give a talk on climate change.

After the clip went viral, the mayor’s office declined to invite local democracy reporters to his next press briefing, sparking a wider boycott from Bristol’s journalists.

Asked if he would reverse the ban on local democracy reporters attending his fortnightly press conferences, during a council meeting on Tuesday, he denied there was ever a ban.

Rees said: “The whole press conferences were set up by me. There had never been a practice like that in the council of setting up press conferences on a regular basis to give the city’s journalists easy access. Every press conference I say ‘you can ask me anything you want, anything’. Often at the end of the press conference, when the journalists run out of questions, I say ‘do you have any more’ so everyone gets a chance.

“Nobody’s been banned. I didn’t invite you to my birthday party, but I didn’t ban you from it. It’s up to me. It’s not statutory, I’m not required to do it, we do it to give journalists easy access to me to ask whatever they want, and we can invite whoever we want.”

He went on to criticise Reach, the company which owns the Bristol Post and Bristol Live, and employs the city’s two local democracy reporters.

The two jobs are funded by the BBC, as part of a nationwide scheme to hold to account local councils, and articles written by the reporters are shared free of charge for other local news organisations to publish as they like.

Rees said: “The local democracy reporters are publicly funded. A private corporation doesn’t employ enough people, and so subsidises its staff with publicly-funded journalists, which is why the National Union of Journalists was opposed to it in the first instance.

“We don’t think that’s appropriate. Every news organisation in the city should properly staff itself at its own cost, not out of the public purse. There are other questions about impartiality and competence, but that’s for another occasion.

“In the world of public commentary, words matter and create images and meaning. Nobody is banned—but they’re not invited. I can invite anyone to interview me I want, that doesn’t mean I need to invite everyone.”

The press conference row stems from a lecture the mayor gave in April at a Ted talk in Vancouver, which was made available to watch online in May.

Environmental campaigners criticised Rees’ decision to fly so far for his “ironic” talk on climate change. The talk focused on how cities need finance to help them decarbonise, amid a lack of action from national governments.

Rees said: “Decarbonising the world’s cities is critical to taking on the challenge of climate change. The battle against climate change will be won or lost in cities. But decarbonising cities needs national and international policy and financial context that supports cities to go through that transition.

“Decarbonising Bristol is over £10 billion. At the moment, national governments aren’t delivering the finance or the policy support.

“If national governments aren’t going to deliver, we need cities to be at those national and international tables, shaping international finance and policy. When I went to Ted, I was shaping international policy and finance. We’re unlocking the vaults of finance that cities need to have access to if they’re going to decarbonise.”

After the meeting, editor at Bristol Live Pete Gavan said: “The LDR service has been a huge success since it was launched in 2017 and helps us and partners shine a light on what’s happening across the city.

“Covering the mayor is entirely within the remit, and we hope to find a resolution that sees the LDRs welcome again.”

The NUJ is also supporting the stance of Bristol Live and other LDR partners in boyotting any future briefings.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service is funded by the BBC as part of its latest Charter commitment, but are employed by regional news organisations. A total of 165 reporters are allocated to news organisations in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

LDRs cover top-tier local authorities, second-tier local authorities and other public service organisations. The core purpose of the LDRs is to provide impartial coverage of the regular business and workings of local authorities in the UK, and other relevant democratic institutions such as mayoralties.

The LDRs brief is to report on what decisions are made in the public’s name, how they are arrived at and what evidence is presented to the council.

Alex Seabrook is a local democracy reporter for Bristol 

Main photo by Betty Woolerton

Read more: Bristol24/7 to boycott mayor’s press conferences

Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast: