[EBC Exclusive] An Ellenburg/Sincluda ticket on the cards?

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An Ellenburg/Sincluda ticket on the cards?
Another Presidential Ticket likely to enter the race as the standing opens
Written by ICH​

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A reliable source close to the EBC has confirmed that Ellenburg and Sincluda have decided to run for President and Vice-President respectively and are expected to announce their campaign as soon as the standing period is opened.

Ellenburg and Sincluda would be up against the UPC/Sanjurika ticket which was announced in the EBC Radio Show hosted this week, subject to any withdrawals or the addition of any other campaigns. Ellenburg and Sincluda are entering this race on the back of their impressive personal approval ratings in the recently-conducted Executive Mid-term Satisfaction polling where Sincluda’s performance was approved by 86.4% of the citizens while Ellen’s performance was approved by 77.3% of the citizenry. In the Executive Interest Polls, the Vice-Presidential candidates on both the tickets were evenly-matched with 61.54% of citizens wanting both of them to run for President/Vice-President. However, there is a significant gap in the numbers of citizens who want UPC and Ellen to run for the Presidency. While 76.92% of citizens wanted UPC to run, the highest among all politically active individuals, 26.92% of citizens wanted Ellen to run, which suggests that Ellenburg still has a lot of ground to cover with less than 10 days remaining to the polls.

The anonymous source has further divulged that the Ellenburg/Sincluda campaign aims to build upon the success of the recent terms and build on them, with the aim of making the executive machine more efficient, unified and powerful. The campaign, according to the source, aims to achieve this by proposing ideas for a vibrant executive, nurturing leadership/new skills and utilising cross-ministetial connections.

Ellenburg and Sincluda also come with a depth of experience in Europeia and abroad. Ellenburg is currently serving his second term as the Culture Minister of Europeia in and have also served in three different Senates. Outside of Europeia, he founded the United Regions Alliance and headed the regions of Conch Kingdom, Lazarus and Anteria as their Prime Ministers. He has also formerly served as the World Assembly Delegate of Conch Kingdom and Autropolis and currently serves as the World Assembly Delegate of The Frontier Sea. Sincluda also requires no introduction, having already served as Vice-President. He formerly headed the Ministry of Communications and also served as a Senator for three terms before taking over the reins of the Outreach Ministry this term.

 

[Common-Sense Politics]

Did the Ellenburg campaign leak their own candidacy to a friendly EBC correspondent who then posted it as a puff piece or is something else happening here? Genuinely asking because when I read this, I formed a very exaggerated facial expression indicating confusion.

 

[PhDre]

Did the Ellenburg campaign leak their own candidacy to a friendly EBC correspondent who then posted it as a puff piece or is something else happening here? Genuinely asking because when I read this, I formed a very exaggerated facial expression indicating confusion.

I had a similar reaction - it's been a long time (I cannot find an example in the last few years) since the EBC broke / floated a non incumbent running for President.

What's also odd is that the language here is outdated and seems to have been pre-written given that the ticket stood well after standing opened and after another candidate:

A reliable source close to the EBC has confirmed that Ellenburg and Sincluda have decided to run for President and Vice-President respectively and are expected to announce their campaign as soon as the standing period is opened.

Also, I definitely find this an interesting bit. I wonder if the anonymous source "close" to the campaign can perhaps let us know when the platform will drop:

The anonymous source has further divulged that the Ellenburg/Sincluda campaign aims to build upon the success of the recent terms and build on them, with the aim of making the executive machine more efficient, unified and powerful. The campaign, according to the source, aims to achieve this by proposing ideas for a vibrant executive, nurturing leadership/new skills and utilising cross-ministetial connections

I kinda feel like the Europeian citizenry is better served seeing actual ideas for a "vibrant executive" than being told that the candidate has this goal from an anonymous source close to the candidate.

 

[ICH]

Did the Ellenburg campaign leak their own candidacy to a friendly EBC correspondent who then posted it as a puff piece or is something else happening here? Genuinely asking because when I read this, I formed a very exaggerated facial expression indicating confusion.

I won't give any hint about who the source of this information is since it would be a bad practice for a news organization to compromise the identity of the individual from whom we receive information.

Breaking news of such political activities is not new in real-life news mediums covering politics and is rather a part-and-parcel of every political coverage. To give a very recent example, hours before Nikki Haley's campaign officially announced an end to their presidential campaign, several news organizations had already broken the news that she was suspending her campaign. Perhaps, they might have received this information from advisors in her political circle. It might be the same in this case as well. We have designed our political gameplay in a way that closely reflects the political activities in real life, and similarly, I feel it is justified for our news organizations to design their political coverage in a way that's also reflective of real-life political coverage.

I wouldn't say it's a puff-post. No portion of the article was written in a way that favored one candidate over the other and the article is based on facts and the information we have received. It brought a reference to the recently concluded executive interest polls which is relevant to the subject of this write-up and also mentions a brief history of the candidate, like every news article does when they talk about a certain candidate.

the language here is outdated and seems to have been pre-written

I finished the write-up yesterday night and had planned to publish the next morning. By the time I got to publishing the article in the morning, the standing had already opened and since I was thinking of the title and the sub-title at that time, the sub-title was not outdated while the writing in one of the sentences was outdated.

it's been a long time (I cannot find an example in the last few years) since the EBC broke / floated a non incumbent running for President.

Admittedly, I was aware of such a precedent not existing but I felt it was not a good enough reason not to publish this. Anyone who is politically interested in the region would like to read such news, just like how in real life, we actively discuss and speculate about political activities and like to keep ourselves updated with information on who's running in an important election or not.

 

[Common-Sense Politics]

I feel you. I’m not really saying anybody was trying to do anything wrong here. I just think it’s bad journalism, top to bottom. It’s easy for me to see why publishing this piece is in the candidate’s best interest. It is more difficult for me to see how it’s in the public’s best interest to cover it this way. Since this is a government outlet, I figured I’d share my opinion. All love.

 

[Rand]

I liked this article. I think it's fun coverage.

 

[PhDre]

Breaking news of such political activities is not new in real-life news mediums covering politics and is rather a part-and-parcel of every political coverage. To give a very recent example, hours before Nikki Haley's campaign officially announced an end to their presidential campaign, several news organizations had already broken the news that she was suspending her campaign. Perhaps, they might have received this information from advisors in her political circle. It might be the same in this case as well. We have designed our political gameplay in a way that closely reflects the political activities in real life, and similarly, I feel it is justified for our news organizations to design their political coverage in a way that's also reflective of real-life political coverage.

On one hand, yes in real life (and in real life) private media organizations often publish stories that are calculated leaks by campaigns. On the other hand, these are the least interesting and valuable reporting done by those outlets. It's mostly odd to see it in the EBC, whereas I wouldn't blink twice at a puff piece in a private outlet.

Access journalism for the sake of it just doesn't seem that interesting to me (and ultimately results in the decision to do access-y journalism being more interesting than the actual article).

I won't give any hint about who the source of this information is since it would be a bad practice for a news organization to compromise the identity of the individual from whom we receive information

I disagree that it is inherently bad practice. Sometimes the goal of creating a news story to benefit your political objectives is a newsworty story in of itself. There are of course many examples of this being reported on in RL journalism. Many anonymous sources deserve protection, of course.

 

[ICH]

I feel you. I’m not really saying anybody was trying to do anything wrong here. I just think it’s bad journalism, top to bottom. It’s easy for me to see why publishing this piece is in the candidate’s best interest. It is more difficult for me to see how it’s in the public’s best interest to cover it this way. Since this is a government outlet, I figured I’d share my opinion. All love.

I agree with you that EBC’s decisions should be guided by public interests. While deciding whether or not to publish this article, I took the public interest into consideration. My line of thinking was that such coverage would play a role in generating interest and hype around our most important election and if the citizens develop interest in the presidential race, they are more likely to take part in the pre-election stuff (like scrutinising the manifesto) and so they would be making a more informed choice. At the same time, more of them would turn up on the voting day as a result of the increased interest and a result that would be more reflective of what the people want is naturally good for our region.

 

[Common-Sense Politics]

By publishing an uncritical bio of and a collection of unqualified platitudes from one candidate? Sorry, I just have to assert that I think what you're describing is indicative of bad judgement and bad journalism.

 

[Seva]

I don't understand what the fuss is about. Let's not pretend the people actually care more about what the EBC writes than what the candidates or private media writes. I see this as a piece of news, something there's been a lot of this term and not so much in the majority of Communications terms in my memory, so I welcome this article. The other campaign also has the same access to the EBC and can get / could have gotten a similar article published, but they chose not to, perhaps reasoning just like I have that it wouldn't help their campaign more than a radio announcement would

 

[PhDre]

Let's not pretend the people actually care more about what the EBC writes than what the candidates or private media writes.

I think this is historically not accurate. If expectations have changed and we are ok with fluff pieces in the EBC for candidates that is a recent development afaik. And historically at least I think it is fair to say that there are different standards for what is published in the EBC than in a citizen's private outlet. I don't think I am "pretending" by having different or higher expectations than you for what the EBC published.

The other campaign also has the same access to the EBC and can get / could have gotten a similar article published

The EBC isn't so starved for content that they should put out two bad fluff articles.

I see this as a piece of news, something there's been a lot of this term and not so much in the majority of Communications terms in my memory, so I welcome this article.

I don't understand this argument, perhaps I'm just not interpreting it correctly? Is the argumen that there isn't a lot of news reported on by the EBC this term but most EBCs don't report the news?

The most interesting thing about this article is again the decision to publish it. If this is what passes for exciting then we must be starved for it.