Archive for the ‘media relations’ Category

I was pretty gobsmacked yesterday when I heard Richard Fadden, the head of CSIS (Canada’s intelligence agency), tell CBC’s flagship newscast The National that his agency knew of cabinet ministers in provincial governments and members of municipal governments who were “under the influence” of “foreign governments.”

Fadden didn’t point to a specific country, but dropped a serious hint by mentioning that about half of CSIS’s budget is devoted to China. He also said that his agency had informed the federal government at its highest levels of their concerns — the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Privy Council Office (PCO).

The reverberations haven’t stopped yet — and yesterday’s 5.0 earthquake that was centred near Ottawa was just a physical manifestation of those ripples.

I’ve not worked for CSIS, either as an employee or a consultant, and I’ve never played in the sandbox of federal politics . So I’m looking at this from the outside, as a PR guy.

At some time in the past several weeks, our chief spook does an interview with one of CBC’s most respected journalists (winner of multiple awards, and some say the inspiration for Live Aid) in which he subtly points at China as an influencer of Canada’s political class.

The day before China’s president arrives in Canada for an official visit, CBC airs the interview as part of a package looking at Canada’s intelligence operations. This is also just before the G8 and G20 meetings are held in Ontario, bringing multiple heads of state to Canada for discussions at the highest of levels.

Fadden then retracts some of his comments in a statement:

“Recent comments I made in the context of a special report by the CBC on CSIS have given rise to some concerns about foreign interference in Canada.  The following statement is meant to place those comments in context.

All of the activities of the Service take place within the law and the CSIS Act in particular.  The CSIS Act requires the Service to investigate threats to the security of Canada – including foreign interference.  The Service has been investigating and reporting on such threats for many years.  Foreign interference is a common occurrence in many countries around the world and has been for decades.

I have not apprised the Privy Council Office of the cases I mentioned in the interview on CBC.

At this point, CSIS has not deemed the cases to be of sufficient concern to bring them to the attention of provincial authorities.

There will be no further comments on these operational matters.”

It didn’t take long for a frenzy of reaction to start. Premiers, mayors, intelligence analysts — all were weighing in on what Fadden had said, and then on the retraction.

Calls for Fadden’s resignation began to surface, while others (such as former senior public servant and current columnist Norman Spector and right-wing blogger Adrian McNair) called for heads to roll at CBC for their journalistic practice.

So from a PR perspective, what can we draw from this?

1. It’s pretty rare for CSIS to open itself up to media scrutiny as it did for The National. So I find it hard to believe that this was done without a great deal of forethought. And even if it was given little prep time, given the time lag between the taping of the interview, some negotiation should or could have been undertaken to mitigate the damage of Fadden’s remarks. At the very least, I hope they brought in some outside interview prep; if they didn’t, then that explains a lot in terms of the miscues.
2. Is CBC at fault here? Should they have broadcast the interview at an earlier time? It’s hard for me to agree with that. What’s CBC’s job? To deliver news and to get ratings. They maximized their exposure with this story. Brian Stewart and Peter Mansbridge didn’t make Fadden say what he said. They ran with it. As they should have.
3. If we agree that this was deliberate, then the most important question to my mind is: what does CSIS gain by having this information come out publicly? If we believe it was a mistake, then the question becomes: how could CSIS get this SO WRONG? Is it a case of an agency and a person unused to dealing with media fouling up? Or is Fadden just loose-lipped (NOT a characteristic he’s known for, apparently, or one that’s desirable in a spymaster).

It’s been interesting contrasting this with the McChrystal affair in the United States. In one case, a general known for his outspoken, maverick image stops too far over the line and resigns; in the other, a senior bureaucrat barely known in the media at all speaks frankly, backtracks, and appears to be waiting out the storm.

(Photo credit: Charlotte Morrall, CC licenced on Flickr)

I’m really excited to announce that the new podcast PR and Other Deadly Sins is LIVE.

Mark Blevis is someone that I have a tremendous amount of respect for, as well as someone I like a lot. So it’s a kick to think that we’ll be doing this as often as we can. How often that is, we’ll figure out as we go. But for now, it’s just a thrill to get the first one out there.

Grab it at the new site PR and Other Deadly Sins. As always, thanks to Tom Hofstatter for holding my galumphing WordPress hands throughout the process.

It’s easy to snipe from the outside. But having watched and read coverage of yesterday’s announcement of new rules around the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system by the Canadian Real Estate Association(CREA), I can’t imagine this is the way they would have wanted it to work out.

Some quick background:

In Canada, the MLS system is operated by CREA, and until yesterday, nobody but a realtor could put a listing on that system. This upset people who wanted to sell their house on their own, or who wanted to use services such as Grapevine or Property Guys. The proprietary nature of MLS data also led to disputes between CREA and people who wanted to mash up MLS data with Google Maps. One example of a failed mashup venture was housing123.com, which was shut down last year.

The federal Competition Bureau has been involved in a longrunning dispute with the association, arguing that the MLS system as presently constituted wasn’t open enough to  competition. In February, the Competition Bureau moved against CREA, saying

For example, under CREA’s rules, agents are prohibited from offering consumers the option of simply paying a fee for an agent to list a home on the MLS system. Instead, all consumers looking to list a property on MLS must purchase a pre-determined set of additional services from a real estate agent, such as the presentation of offers and negotiation of a final deal.

“The Bureau is focused on striking down these anti-competitive rules, so that real estate agents wishing to offer innovative services can do so, and consumers can benefit from greater choice,” said Commissioner Aitken. “While the market will ultimately determine prices for residential real estate services, we expect that if the Tribunal strikes down the anti-competitive restrictions, there will be downward pressure on real estate fees in Canada.”

CREA strenuously objected to that characterization. Here’s what CREA President Dale Ripplinger told the Globe and Mail at that time:

CREA president Dale Ripplinger said the decision was “surprising and disappointing.”

“We do not agree with the Bureau’s position that certain CREA rules are anti-competitive, either as a matter of fact or as a matter of law. CREA’s rules allow for innovative business models and provide a broad range of choice for consumers,” Mr. Ripplinger said in a statement.

Which brings us to yesterday, when CREA announced a number of changes to their services and held a news conference. Normally, I would have added “a news conference to explain the changes” to that sentence. But I didn’t for a specific reason — they didn’t want to explain, as this CBC News report will make clear:

The next blow came when the Competition Bureau dismissed the changes in no uncertain terms, saying in this statement:

“There is nothing in these proposals that we haven’t seen before and they do not solve the problem,” said Melanie Aitken, Commissisoner of Competition, “They are a step in the wrong direction. These amendments amount to a blank cheque allowing CREA and its members to create rules that could have even greater anti-competitive consequences.”

In February, the Competition Bureau filed a challenge to CREA‘s rules regarding the use of the MLS. The Bureau has concluded that these rules restrict the ability of consumers to choose the real estate services they want, forcing them to pay for services they do not need. The rules also prevent real estate agents from offering more innovative service and pricing options to consumers.

“We have repeatedly advised CREA‘s leadership that these amendments do not solve our ongoing competition concerns and I reiterated this directly to CREA as recently as last week in a letter to the President,” the Commissioner said.

So you hvae a news conference where the President flees from the media without answering a single question, then your “enemy”, rather than acknowledging things as a step forward, says it’s a step in the wrong direction. This didn’t go well.

So what went wrong? From the outside, my guesses would be that there was some combination of:

• insufficient thinking through the news conference. If you weren’t going to talk to media, why invite them at all? Send out a statement.
• a lack of consultation of the Competition Bureau. If this was going to poke the hornet’s nest, why do it?
• an overall lack of attention to communications. The CREA web site has far from a state-of-the-art media room. It needs some serious upgrading. Furthermore, there’s a wordpress-based CREA News blog, but that site has nothing about the new rules CREA’s proposing. Last year, when I wrote a couple of blog posts about the lack of mobile functionality on real estate sites, I didn’t find CREA tremendously responsive.

There’s no doubt that CREA is facing a difficult issue. But communications could have a positive effect on the issue. Right now, I don’t think that’s happening.

Photo is licenced by Creative Commons: CC BY-NC 2.0; post inspired by Sarah Stewart

I spent the better part of a decade working at post-secondary institutions in communications. Which means that I did a lot of work around politicians visiting campuses. New buildings, new labs, funding announcements, safety blitzes, policy unveilings… I’ve done ‘em all.

And one evergreen part of the event is the walkabout. This is the part of the event where the politician, accompanied by his or her entourage as well as officials from the institution, leaves the podium and then wanders around an area looking at stuff that’s related in some way to the announcement.

Talking about water purification? Check out this demo: EcoVu water purification.  Announcing new money for education? Hit a classroom or computer lab. Health care announcement? Check out a nursing lab.

This gets done for a couple of reasons. The most important one from my perspective has always been that it’s hard for TV to cover an announcement with just pictures of the politician speaking. You need stuff on tape that the reporter can write over. And in some cases, the politicians are actually interested.

But this morning’s Daily Intel slide show is the epitome of the photo-op: A History of Obama Feigning Interest in Mundane Things. If you’re a communicator or a political aide, view and chuckle knowingly. Or weep. Or both.

Obama feigning interest in a screw

I’ve been watching the Danny Williams health-care saga with a bit of consternation. And I’ve been thinking about how this controversy started and has continued to swirl when the energy of Newfoundland’s premier should be focused on treatment and healing.

Two provisos first off for this discussion:

• I don’t much care whether he went to the States or not or why
• I don’t much care whether he’s paying for his health care out of pocket

The problem here has been and is one of communication.

The story about Williams broke on Newfoundland CTV affiliate NTV on Monday, February 1. Good on them for breaking a big story. Other media quickly followed, but it wasn’t until Tuesday morning that Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale laid out some of the facts in a news conference.

The facts revealed then included:

• There had been weeks of consultations
• The “option” of surgery in Canada was not “on the table”

The facts that weren’t included? Lots:

• The nature of the procedure
• The date when the procedure would be performed
• Where the procedure would be performed
• Who would perform it
• How long the expected recovery would be (beyond an estimate of 3-12 weeks)

There’s not even a news release on the Newfoundland and Labrador government’s media room with information available — just a media advisory (dated 8:25 on February 2) announcing the news conference by Deputy Premier Dunderdale which took place 65 minutes later.

While Williams, like anyone else, is entitled to privacy, there’s a problem here, and that problem is in the strategy. Not saying anything has given this story a huge energy boost. There’s nothing more attractive to journalists than a secret, and this is a whole gift basket of them waiting to be found out.

And the recent history of health in Newfoundland, with a crisis of confidence caused by botched tests for breast cancer, means that a health crisis for the Premier is GOING to be news. For the most part, the story hasn’t been too politicized — even opposition leaders are being mostly supportive — but there’s no guarantee that it will stay that way.

The results of all this have been — and will be — an ongoing laser-like focus on the story by Canadian media, while I would suspect the US attention will subside once Williams gets back to Canada. It’s just sad that Williams didn’t take the bull by the horns, provide the basic information, and then ask for privacy. A man of his considerable forcefulness likely would have gotten it.

The biggest surprise to me is that the strategy the Premier, and consequently the Newfoundland Government, is following must have been developed during the weeks of consultation Dunderdale mentioned to the media. This was the best they could do? Oy.

Sometimes your breath can simply be taken away by the stupidity of a business’s actions.

This was the case for me when I first read that a subsidiary company of Loblaws had filed a statement of claim against the owner of a van which collided with one of its trucks — and against the driver of that van.

Here are some of the details and back story, thanks to sources including Wikipedia’s “Boys in Red” article:

• January 12, 2008: an extended passenger van carrying the Bathurst high school boys’ basketball team was driving back to Bathurst, New Brunswick after playing a game in Moncton. Just after midnight on the 12th, the driver, coach Wayne Lord, lost control of the vehicle in freezing rain and snow and veered into the path of a tractor-trailer owned by Atlantic Wholesalers, a subsidiary of Loblaws. Loblaws is a $30-billion company with nearly 140,000 employees.
• Seven members of the team were killed, as well as Lord’s wife, who also taught at Bathurst High School.
• The accident (collision, says Tom of What the Lemur) made national news, and people around Atlantic Canada were especially moved by the tragedy. For example, one memorial group established on Facebook attracted nearly 9,000 members
• Following the collision, 15-passenger vans were taken out of service in Nova Scotia, and there were multiple investigations into the accident by the RCMP, Transport Canada (pdf of report) and by the province of New Brunswick.
• The investigations didn’t find a single overwhelming cause for the accident; however, the van had worn brakes and tires, while the driver was tired and weather conditions were poor. The RCMP did not lay criminal charges.
• Some of the parents of those killed in the accident have continued to work for changes in policies and processes to make children safer, most prominently through the Van Angels web site.
• On December 22, 2009, Atlantic Wholesalers and Loblaws filed a statement of claim against Lord and the company which owned the van. They were pursuing about $41,000 in damages to their truck, environmental remediation, as well as costs and legal fees.
• The pending lawsuit was picked up by the media, starting with a radio report on Friday, January 9 — the second anniversary of the collision accident.
• The outrage in media response was immediate, and I would wager that the response to Loblaws itself was equally loud and negative.
• After a brief period of not responding to calls for comment, Loblaws withdrew the suit the same day the media attention hit, and issued a statement from the company’s president:

“We thoroughly apologize for the alarm and concern caused by the statement of claim. While it is normal legal practice to look for reimbursement from the parties deemed to be at fault , this decision was clearly made without consideration of the specifics of this accident. We would also like to thank all our customers that voiced their concern regarding our decision, allowing us to reconsider our actions.”

• Now, according to CBC online, Loblaws is engaged in some damage control in New Brunswick, calling the mayor of Bathurst and seeking advice on what action the company could take to demonstrate its contrition.

796 mostly anti-Loblaw comments on this CBC story

I don’t think Loblaws is an inherently evil company. And I don’t doubt that seeking reimbursement for damages is normal legal practice, as the company’s statement says. But there were serious miscalculations here. First, whoever made the decision to file the statement of claim likely thought more about process than about the human aspects of the tragedy. He or she or they forgot the human impact of this accident, which should have outweighed the damages.

The timing was beyond unfortunate. To do this so close to the anniversary of the accident was asking for trouble. But if you weren’t thinking of this as a human tragedy, you wouldn’t think of that.

The most serious miscalculation, was the inclusion of the van driver as an individual in the suit. I’d wager that a claim only against the company might have gone with far less, if any criticism. But when you file suit against a man who lost his wife and seven members of his basketball team in an accident, you can’t help but look like an insensitive bull, even if you’re ‘really’ filing suit against his insurance company.

It’s hard to think about the human factors when you’re part of a huge organization. But as Loblaws has learned, you ignore them at your peril.

Fail image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisgriffith/ / CC BY 2.0

I don’t often pile on. But I can’t help myself. I have to take a couple of kicks at  Angelo Persichilli’s latest column in the Hill Times.

Angelo Persichilli is the Politics Editor of Corriere Canadese, a national Italian-language newspaper, and a dedicated opinionist, with a column in the Hill Times and in the Toronto Star besides his work for Corriere. And he got himself some significant attention recently when he wrote in the Star that a group of Liberal MPs had met in the bar of the Chateau Laurier to discuss getting Bob Rae into the leadership of the Liberal Party, and Michael Ignatieff out.

The column was roundly criticized for its lack of attribution for quotes, among other things. So reading (thanks to Chris Selley’s National Post column) that according to Persichilli, the Internet and politics means that

a lot of information might reach millions of people unfiltered. While this provides a great opportunity for the truth to reach millions, we may also be flooded by faulty, incomplete and outright wrong information, as well as malicious attack and some plain lies.

This will clog the system making it hard to see the difference between truth and lies and justified and unjustified accusations. Essentially, without the filter of editors, producers, and responsible journalists, what exists now is a jungle of bloggers. There is no doubt that the internet has and will continue to let the truth reach people, the problem is that we no longer know what’s true and what’s not.

Later in the column, Persichilli suggests that

I don’t know how many hits websites of the major political organizations have every day. Given the ease with which people can access them, I hope there are millions. Otherwise I think they should take them down and completely refocus their aim. The only time we hear about them is when they show controversial items that systematically create problems for the image of their own political organization.

I don’t know where to begin with what Persichilli writes and appears to think.

First, his focus is almost entirely on mainstream media vs. bloggers and particuarly those affiliated with the mainstream political parties.

Second, it’s impossible to ignore the irony of Persichilli criticizing bloggers after being roundly castigated for his Star column, which it should be assumed benefited from the “filter of editors, producers, and responsible journalists” he writes about.

I think the great frustration of the last decade in Canadian politics where it meets the internet has been the lack of trailblazers who are using the tools of social media to really make a difference in the process of government. Look, for example, at David Miliband in the UK, who as Foreign Secretary is at the head of a line of dozens of bloggers, both politicians and public servants.

What is needed in Canada’s political scene are places where people put forth thoughtful and reasoned opinions that become the basis of informed discussion. Slagging bloggers won’t do it, nor will uninformed journalism.

What will do it is a commitment by political parties and by individual politicians to begin engaging in conversation, not just continue using social media channels to re-blast the same old messages down a one-way street. What is also needed is a commitment by government to support responsible bloggers within its departments, and a decision to stop blocking the use of social media tools by its employees.What’s happening right now is that social media engagement in much of Canada’s federal government is spasmodic and project-limited, not defined by conversation and engagement.

There are a lot of smart, competent politicians (my MP Paul Dewar, for example, who I think is a diligent and serious-minded parliamentarian) AND public servants here in Ottawa working for the feds (Nick Charney and Colin McKay come to mind), as well as in the provincial and municipal governments. Let’s turn them loose a little bit.

It’s not usual for people in the PR game to make the news when they take a new job. But there have been a couple of big changes in the last 48 hours here in Ottawa that have got a lot of chatter going in the blogosphere and the mainstream media.

City of Ottawa director of communications Denis Abbott was dismissed on Wednesday, and now it appears that there have been three hires made in the communications shop at the city.

Chris Day, a former reporter for CTV Ottawa who has been press secretary for Transport Minister John Baird for the last year or so, is going to become a manager (don’t know the exact title) in the comms shop.

Meanwhile, Patrick Dare is leaving his job as a City Hall reporter with the Ottawa Citizen and Derek Puddicombe is doing the same at the Ottawa Sun. Both will be “communications strategists” for the city.

So why is this news? Part of it is timing — The sudden departure of Abbott in the wake of the city’s auditor-general report focused attention of the media on communications. In addition, the city’s had lots of issues to confront on the communications front — the green-bin introduction and its associated fee and dispute between the city and the contractor; the ongoing light-rail file; Lansdowne Live consultations and decisions; and the prosecution of Mayor Larry O’Brien‘s criminal charges. Then, when reporters “go over to the dark side”, it further focuses interest.

For example, the hiring of CTV reporter Rosemary Thompson by the National Arts Centre didn’t get this much attention, in my opinion.

But here’s a couple of questions and issues this latest move by the city brings up.

1. Patrick Dare has a story in today’s Ottawa Citizen about an $865K error in a contract between the city and a new arts venue in the east end. Puddicombe had a number of stories in the Sun yesterday. While I respect both men, at the very least the perception that one day they are the objective, impartial journalist; the next, in the employ of the organization they were covering yesterday, is not good.
2. While I don’t believe this, the argument could be made that the city is squelching journalistic enterprise and investigation by bringing two experienced and savvy reporters into the fold. Some are already making that criticism.
3. Communications does not equal media relations. In a column written by Sun reporter Susan Sherring (who one assumes isn’t gonna get hired tomorrow by the city), she runs the following quotes:

“I want the communications group focused on getting the city story out. I want people who can think about what the story is. We need to do a better job on the daily stuff that comes out of the media,” said Kanellakos.

“We’re bringing in people who know how to deal with the media,” said College Coun. Rick Chiarelli.

Certainly, media relations is important. I’ve spent a long time doing it myself. But I hope that Dare, Puddicombe and Day are going to set and be judged on other goals than just “getting good ink” for the city. While it’s understandable that Sue Sherring, a longtime print journalist, would see that as a key, and it’s not surprising that the quotes she ran support that view, communications at the city could take a far broader view of the tools available.

For example:

• until recently, OC Transpo‘s web site prominently featured a travel planner that was FAR inferior to what could be found using Google Maps. It’s still not as good as gMaps but it’s been improved.
• the city’s system of putting committee agendas and minutes online is utterly incomprehensible and requires huge amounts of repetition to look at documentation. (hint: if you need to feature help so prominently, your tool doesn’t work)
• there’s no mechanism for allowing for public consultation online.

I’m not trying to poke holes in the city’s communications efforts. But if the new hires have been simply hired to stop the negative stories, not only will their considerable skill be squandered, but there will be missed opportunities for the city of Ottawa to communicate more directly and effectively with its citizens.

(DISCLOSURE: I’ve dealt with Dare, Puddicombe, and Day over the years. I’m not “friends” with them, but I would say I’m friendly with all three.)

UPDATED 2/12/09: According to the Sun and the City blog, the city has now apparently also hired reporter Caroline Barrière of French-language Ottawa newspaper Le Droit for its comms team. Her colleague Mario Boulianne wrote of her departure (translation mine):

I began working with Caroline Barrière more than 11 years ago. At that time, Caro was with the arts section. She stayed there for several years before accepting a position with the CIty of Ottawa. After that, she covered the health and education beats, as well as writing a weekly editorial. Yesterday, she turned an important page in her life, leaving Le Droit after 13 years.

We will miss her diligence and experience enormously, not even mentioning her pleasant disposition and her witty — sometimes sarcastic — remarks, which always made us laugh. And I know that her new employer will benefit from an employee who is dynamic, cheerful, and very competent.

Ciao,
Bob.

I got the following pitch today. I’m redacting it to remove identifying information, but man, does the last line of that covering note grate on my nerves. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never expressed interest in this company.

Here goes:

Greetings! COMPANY X, LLC just posted — COMPANY X empowers passionate online publishers with addition to its PROGRAM Y. Please contact us if you need any additional information. Thank you for your interest in COMPANY X, LLC.

Best Regards,
PR Department
PHONE

press@COMPANYX.com

Original Collateral Text:

COMPANY X empowers passionate online publishers with addition to its PROGRAM Y Program

CITY–STATE/ October 27, 2009 – COMPANY X, LLC announced the launch of the new entry level tier of its PROGRAM Y: PROGRAM Y: Standard. The ‘Standard’ package is for small content owners and web media companies. The new program rounds out COMPANY(TM) revolutionary program.

MISTER X, GRAND POOHBAH, commented: “Online publishers who want to do more than, well, one thing at a time, are frustrated. I know, I’ve been in their shoes. They’ve posted blogs, videos, photos and audios on sharing sites and tried to tie it all together along with social networking and other widgets. The tools are all different, they don’t talk to each other and every time a version changes — things break. They have no way to really grow audience and their users cannot contribute “any media” rich content. They’ve tried ad programs and ad networks and they only seem to “cheapen” content. Worse still – they seem to spend more time wrestling with the technology than on their content. I only wish that COMPANY(TM) had been available for my previous companies! ”

I’ve asked the company when I had expressed interest in them, but haven’t heard back from them.

I know that we’ve all moaned about bad pitches, but this one just got under my skin.

Hope this doesn’t get under yours in the same way.

Ciao,
Bob.

The Fraser Institute is a think tank here in Canada that believes in “a free and prosperous world where individuals benefit from greater choice, competitive markets, and personal responsibility.”

I would call them a right-wing think tank. But they’re pretty darn media savvy. One of their standards each year is the proclamation of “Tax Freedom Day” — the day on which Canadians theoretically have earned enough money to pay all of their tax burden for the year and begin “working for themselves.”

They claim the day fell on June 6 this year. They say the latest one was June 24 in 2000, while in 1961, it was two months earlier, meaning we were less burdened then.

As part of their blitz on Tax Freedom Day this year, they have a Video and MP3 available of a song somebody wrote about taxes.

It’s not a bad song. Kinda cute, kinda funny. But I’ve got two pet peeves.

1. The Fraser Institute should have been smart enough to put embed codes in or to post it publicly to YouTube so I could put it here. They didn’t, so I can’t. The Share button is fine, but come on, make it easy!
2. They never mention who the guy is who sings it (and presumably wrote it.) Would it have killed them to give him some credit?

Admittedly, this is no Conference Board of Canada-level scandal. But Fraserites — could you make it easier for us out here in the blogosphere?

UPDATE: The video is on Youtube. They just don’t SAY it is.

Ciao,
Bob.