Right in the centre - Opening the doors would be nice

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Published on Thursday, November 12, 2015

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Late on Sunday, a story was gleefully written by the CBC that a lady had posted a Facebook message regarding her son, a scientist in the employ of the Canadian government.

Basically, it said that with the election of the new federal Liberal government that government scientists (and by implication all government workers) would now be able to talk to the media about their work. I say, gleefully written, because the CBC will do anything they can to continue to paint the former Conservative government in bad light, but that’s another story

Whether, the FB message is accurate or not, I have no way of knowing, but it could well be. It has little to do with the practises of  federal Conservative government. It has a lot more to do with how governments, at all levels, operate these days. The cone of silence treatment of media is widespread and penetrates all levels of government and businesses for that matter.

There are two reasons. One is that governments (and businesses) have mistakenly adopted the idea that silence is better than information, that what information that is let out has to be very controlled. The second reason is that very few people and even fewer journalists actually check out what they are being told. Whatever sounds good and fits the news flavour of the month for media becomes a big story.

Here are some examples of the first reason. Yes, the federal conservatives did control their message. They were following the Liberal Party of Canada and the Manitoba NDP who both do the same thing. The NDP have nearly two hundred paid communicators to put out their limited information messages. Local municipal councils and school boards meet for long sessions in-camera, away from any public questioning. They are often tempted to put even petty stuff into those meetings so the public doesn’t get to know what’s going on. The regional health authorities are really bad, as basically only the RHA CEOs can speak to media or the public. Ask them how many beds are being used at a local care home and you would think the local manager could tell you, but not usually. You have to get every bit of information from the head of the RHA. Seeing as there are about 4,000 RHA employees, it’s pretty much impossible to get information on local issues. Occasionally, they put out a press release but it’s rare and it’s never about anything bad unless they absolutely have to say something about a rural hospital emergency room closure or something of that nature. 

It used to be that hospital administrators, government department heads and cabinet minsters used to be able to talk to the media. Not much any more. Why has this happened? It’s because governments (and businesses) are very fearful of their message being twisted. Instead of fighting misinformation or accusation with facts, they hide behind privacy laws, cabinet communications officers or occasionally their talking head CEOs.

As to the second reason, journalists and people in general, are only interested in the quick fix. If it can’t be said in 140 characters on Twitter or in a 10 second sound bite, the story has a hard time finding the light of day. Journalists tend to be in such a rush to get their message out as quickly as possible and with as little work as possible they end up grabbing onto any scrap of information. They slap on a headline, wrap it in some old, previously published information and call it a story. Job done, let’s move on! As Conrad Black said many years ago, journalists are lazy. He’s correct, journalists are often very lazy. 

News organizations including TV channels, newspaper groups and radio stations want to fill space or air time as cheaply as possible. With all those characteristics wrapped together, you get shallow, quick news stories lacking both substance and accuracy.

Maybe the new federal Liberal government will open up the veils of secrecy that have enveloped governments at all levels. Hopefully that will happen but journalists have to do their job too. It’s called thinking, analyzing, questioning – all old time reporting tools that have mostly disappeared in a world of quick fix news shrouded in bias and political correctness.