Able to see some of the Council meetings on the Internet – live – again

After the Council last year switched off the high-speed wireless that would disable the video service All About Auckland being able to stream Council meetings live, Auckland Council has finally put out a tender to resume live streaming. From Stuff.co.nz:

Auckland Council to beam live 

LAURA WALTERS Last updated 13:55 23/04/2014

The Auckland Council plans to run a live webcast of 57 of its council meetings each year in a bid to increase transparency and raise awareness of the decision-making process.

The council has called for expressions of interest from people who could provide services needed for a live webcast of meetings.

In its information document, the council said it planned to provide a live webcast to make the political process more transparent, increase awareness of the decision-making process, reduce reliance on the media and recognise the increased size and impact of the council in New Zealand and the accompanying need to perform at a world-class level.

The webcasts would initially cover meetings of the mayor and 20 councillors and meetings of four committees.

The committees are the Auckland development committee, the finance and performance committee, the budget committee and the regional strategy and policy committee.

The average duration of each meeting was four hours, the council said.

Council spokesman Glyn Walters said the council had been planning to offer the webcasts since the council was set up in 2010.

…….

So the five meetings this live streaming is meant to cover are:

1. The Governing Body (so the main Council itself) chaired by the Mayor
2. The Budget Committee also chaired by the Mayor
3. The Auckland Development Committee chaired by Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse
4. The Strategy and Policy Committee chaired by Councillor George Wood
5. The Finance and Performance Committee chaired by Councillor Penny Webster

The sub committees and forums that report back to the main committees above will not be beamed live on the Internet.

It will be good to have the live beaming restored after All About Auckland’s live streaming was dropped last year when the Council turned off the high-speed wireless inside the main Council Chambers. Yes the live beaming does allow more people across Auckland to watch and witness both the Governing Body, and the Committees of the Whole in action. The restoring of live beaming also allows people like myself to run live Tweeting and live Blogging when we are not able to make the Committees ourselves for whatever reason. And yes live Tweeting from the Governing Body and the Committees is (as I discovered) quite a popular service for people who either can not watch the video or be at the Council meeting.

I did notice this one liner from the Stuff article: “the council said it planned to provide a live webcast to make the political process more transparent, increase awareness of the decision-making process, reduce reliance on the media and recognise the increased size and impact of the council in New Zealand.”

Reduce the reliance on the media. Hmm the media are typically only at the Governing Body meetings and periodically maybe at the Budget Committee meetings. Otherwise it is just usually me and veteran reporter Bob Dey casting a very lonely presence at the media table while the Budget Committee, and Auckland Development Committee (both the most important committees after the Governing Body itself) meet and deliberate (with Bob also usually at the Strategy and Policy, and Finance and Performance Committees). So I do wonder if Council is having a go at a particular journalist or in a roundabout way trying to increase the visibility of the Committees.

None-the-less I doubt the Main Stream Media outlets will increase their reporting from Council even when the live beaming resumes. So it will be back down to the blogs and other social media outlets to help continuing to spread the word and provide commentary that would otherwise be absent.

Suppose we will have to wait and see how the tendering of this new beaming (streaming) service will go and whether the live streaming will be free.