Comments on The Road to the Horizon: MSF video: An ad too far?

Pete and Marc, thank you both for taking the time...

2009-09-03T18:11:20.056+01:00

Pete and Marc,
thank you both for taking the time to respond.

Marc,
It is clear that people's perception and experience from the same ad are different. Probably based on their experience, their values,...

On the confusion about whether MSF disabled comments or not: I take it this was a mistake indeed probably caused by the initial wording of the text on the MSF UK website, plus the fact that the Osocio blog invited to also comment on the MSF UK website...
I apologize having miss-understood.

For the rest, my opinion stands.

Rgds,

Peter

Dear Peter, Thanks for your email inviting me to ...

2009-09-03T09:17:51.521+01:00

Dear Peter,

Thanks for your email inviting me to join the discussion about the web ad. You have voiced a strong and sharply worded opinion. I can't say I agree with your conclusions, but can understand where they came from. The ad is undoubtedly provocative, and seems to raise a wide array of questions and viewpoints. I've been impressed by the weeks of commentary on blogsites such as osocio and duckrabbit. Some people think the ad is brilliant. Others, such as yourself, find it manipulative and hypocritical. You may find it unsurprising that my sentiments more closely resemble the former.

Regarding the ad, I have made a post under my name on the osocio website ( http://osocio.org/message/msf_we_cant_operate_without_your_help/ ), where this discussion has been going on for several weeks. Hopefully, it contributes to the discussion around questions you and others have raised.

Also, one thing you claim is that we dismantled the feedback mechanism on our website. I see you have added an update to your original blog post, but on this I need to be really clear. Our website doesn't have the functionality to receive comments so initially the head of communications put her direct email address. However we misjudged the number of emails she would receive and have to reply to personally, so instead we changed to asking people to leave their comments on one of the blog sites instead. Naivete about the possibilities of Web2.0? Maybe. Whatever the case, we should not have created the impression that we were trying to close off discussion. On the contrary, this discussion has been invaluable given that we are in uncharted waters for MSF. So we should have explained that we are still very interested in receiving comments, that we do listen to them, but that we can't respond to them individually. That has been corrected.

Keep up the good work -- I was unfamiliar with your site but have now bookmarked it for those five days a year when I manage to indulge my intellectual curiosity about aid, rather than simply working in the middle of it..

Marc DuBois
Executive Director, MSF-UK

On update 3, I just want to say that I have not fo...

2009-09-01T16:40:44.376+01:00

On update 3, I just want to say that I have not found the comments made too hard. As I responded to Michael above (on another blog - http://bit.ly/lgW5G ), I take these criticisms as constructive - as I am sure they are meant.

It is a difficult balance.

I stated that the opinions were my own because I do not speak for MSF on this ad. I didn't create it, nor have anything to do with it's planning. What I didn't want to do was join the debate without saying who I worked for - that, I think, would have been disingenuous. However, this debate has given me food for thought on a whole number of things. I am not 'in it to win it' - that is not the point - what I (and I think MSF) take from it will be far more valuable.

Pete Masters

For me, the issue is not only in the ad but also i...

2009-09-01T01:10:45.589+01:00

For me, the issue is not only in the ad but also in the way MSF UK mishandled its communications around the add (”metacommunications”, if guess). Their website manager’s appearance (and subsequent disappearance) under the guise of only representing his personal opinion and not MSF’s might or might not be true, but it reflects extremely negatively on our credibility next time we try to do advocacy. I tried to broach this subject on Duckrabbit, but only received abuse from the blog manager(s) — being called “patronizing”, “petty”, and “a piece of work”. That, of course, will do a lot of good, too (irony intended).