14 April 2005
Greens launch blog to directly connect with voters

The Greens have this morning launched a weblog ("blog") for election year to get their message directly to voters.

The blog, dubbed frogblog, and available at http://blog.greens.org.nz, will be contributed to by Green MPs and Parliamentary staff.

"Frogblog is all about having a conversation with the public," Green Co-Leader Rod Donald said. "It's a virtual town hall meeting where we get to state our position and voters can also speak their minds.

"The ability for readers to tell us what they think is an important feature of the blog. It's not just us talking. The blog will facilitate a robust debate of the issues, which is a prerequisite to any healthy, democratic society.

"This is the latest initiative in our strategy to communicate directly with voters, building on our fantastic, award-winning website and email newsletters tailored to readers' interests."

Mr Donald said young voters were a particular target audience of the blog.

"Our highest support comes from 18-25-year-olds, but these young New Zealanders get their information in different ways from older voters. Morning daily papers and Morning Report are out, news websites and blogs are in. Our challenge, therefore, is to find ways of talking to them which are relevant to their lifestyles; hence, frogblog and the soon-to-be-released Greenroom CD featuring a rap from Nandor."

ENDS

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