Time for Spin School 101.

There are four things you can do to discredit a negative story about your organisation, such as this one about Leicester City Council refusing a homecoming parade to local troops.

The first is to deny the story outright. This is the most powerful response. Unfortunately, when you’ve tacitly admitted – see here and here – that the story is correct then it’s an option which is not open to you.

The second is to find a single inaccuracy, and use that to discredit the rest of the story. This has been a favourite of senior Government press officers for the past decade or so. National newspaper colleagues tell how 2,000 in-depth focus pieces are scoured for a single error, no matter how small, to cast doubt on the veracity on the entire story.

The third is to say that someone was misquoted. This is an awkward one, because journalists often tape record interviews or keep accurate (100+ words per minute shorthand notes).

The fourth response is the weakest response. That’s to point out that someone was “selectively quoted”, as the city council did on its Twitter account on Saturday night.

Sounds sinister, doesn’t it? The thing is, all quotes are selective. They have to be. When you see Sir Peter, or David Parsons, or Rick Moore, or Gary Garner quoted in the Mercury it’s usually only a couple of lines long. Often conversations last for several minutes, perhaps even half an hour in some cases. You select the quotes, in context, which are relevant to the particular story you’re covering.

That’s exactly what I did Amanda Crowden from Support our Soldiers, Jim Rowlinson from the British Legion, Councillor Ross Grant, and the mayor. I’ve double checked my notes and there isn’t a single inaccurate quote used in Saturday’s article.

The city council’s decision to use its official Twitter account in an attempt to discredit a local news report looks bizarre. Professionalism appears to have given way to a burst of frustration. The Tweet in question has now been removed, but one of my first tasks on Monday morning is to establish who uploads content to this account and who posted the Tweet in question.

In terms of the story itself there are some gaps which are yet to be filled in. That’s the nature of journalism, there’s always more to know. These may make follow up stories.

Who, specifically, turned down the original request? What reason was given? Was a different reason given privately?

The council’s original response to the story was incredibly quick and clean. Mistakes were admitted, a u-turn enacted, and the story was nipped in the bud by lunchtime, and the council will get some decent coverage in Monday morning’s Mercury.

So why, after a textbook example of how to deal with negative story, did the council go down the route of trying to discredit the story late last night?

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