Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

"Excited" "new" "Canadians"

It seems like just a year or so ago that Netflix found itself in the New York Times apologizing for hiring actors to pretend to be excited about the company entering the Canadian market. And didn’t the US Federal Emergency Management agency have to apologize for pretending that its own employees were journalists, when it faked a news conference? Oh yeah, they did!

But hey, those guys are amateurs. They are certainly not “Canada’s home for hard news and straight talk”, a network that is “unwavering in their commitment to uncover the real stories impacting the lives of everyday working people and their families“.

So when Sun News wants to cover a citizenship ceremony, what ends up happening? The minister’s office sends down the orders to put together a ceremony at the Sun studios (not where Elvis and Jerry Lee hung out, sadly), and when they have trouble putting together enough warm bodies to make the ceremony look legit… the ceremony gets faked, with public servants posing as new Canadians. Here’s the video, in all its cringeworthy glory. Keep in mind as you watch it, that six of these people are not “new Canadians.” They are federal employees.

I’m guessing the two small people on the end aren’t the public servants. They appear to be children, although in this topsy-turvy world who can tell? Here’s the story as reported in the Globe and Mail, obtained through Access to Information requests by the Canadian Press.

The story’s money quote:

When a bureaucrat sent Sun News a list of possible citizenship ceremonies to cover in Ontario, a network employee suggested another scenario. “Let’s do it. We can fake the Oath,” reads an email from a sunmedia.ca email address, the name blacked out of the document.

I suppose I should draw the lessons, although I can’t imagine I have to:

• Journalists shouldn’t create pseudo events or cover them as real events.
• Public servants should have more integrity.
• Hard news and straight talk don’t mix well with “Fake the Oath.”

Let’s all be a bit better than this.

UPDATE:

The political appointee Candice Malcom appeared on Sun News today to apologize for the event. Sun News host Pat Bolland claimed that they knew nothing of the fakery. For what it’s worth, I never would have suggested the strategy followed in the wake of this muffup. Here’s the video:

UPDATE 2: Sun News Network’s David Akin weighs in with his take on the event.

I am much more the armchair quarterback than the participant when it comes to politics. I volunteered on an NDP campaign in Halifax back in the 80s, and I tried to help a friend become an Ottawa city councillor in 2006. Beyond that, I’m a dutiful voter and an active discusser. I don’t know many politicians. I’ve met a few, from time to time. But I don’t really know them.

So watching the assassination of a friend’s character in 24 hours has been a sobering experience.

Anthony Marco is someone I’ve met through PAB. I consider him a friend in the social-media sense of the word. We might not speak for months at a time. More likely, we might trade an e-mail, a tweet, or I might leave a comment on one of his several podcasts. Anthony is a dynamic speaker, he’s a great writer and a superb podcaster.

And he’s also the NDP’s candidate for the riding of Ontario PC party leader Tim Hudak.

And since yesterday, he’s been the subject of a story in the Toronto Sun, and now the smearing of the Liberal Party’s war room. The source of the outrage in the Sun story? Anthony said, in a podcast, that he was an atheist, that he thought churches were great examples of brand loyalty, and that he sometimes considered religion equivalent to a hobby. The comment thread at the Sun story quickly degenerated to juvenile and insulting personal comments.

Now the Liberal party, led by its prominent war-room blogger Warren Kinsella, has decided to paint Anthony as a “kook”, a “lunatic”, and to insinuate that he is somehow anti-Semitic and/or sympathetic to Nazism. By referring to one (I’m waiting to find out which one)  of his more than 300 podcast episodes at LoveHateThings.

Since I haven’t the time to listen to all 332 episodes, I can’t determine whether the quotes are accurate, or whether the context would have something to say about them. So I’m not going to try (at this point) to defend them, beyond saying I’ll wait until I know what the actual content tells me.

What I will say is this. I know enough about Anthony Marco to know a misrepresentation when I see one. And if this is how the game of politics is played, I pity our country. If political parties are willing to listen to hundreds of hours of audio to search out something to smear a fundamentally good man, to paint him as an anti-Semite, then I now see one reason for our country’s political disengagement.

Someone once said that you don’t want to see two things being made: sausages, and laws. I would now add political victories to that list. This is ugly, and infuriating, and nauseating, and sleazy. And it makes me wonder just how many other good, worthy people have lost elections because of this sort of nonsense. Sad, isn’t it?

UPDATE: I appear to have been banned from Warren Kinsella’s website. Mr. Kinsella posted a reply to me that read “Then beat it.” I replied with “Cogent.” He deleted that reply in the moderation queue. I then replied again, assuming that it was a mistake. The second reply was deleted, and he then added significantly to his comment. You can find the thread here. I suppose I should start emptying my closets. God knows what skeletons Mr. Kinsella will find there.

In any case, just to be sure that SOMEONE gets to read my reply to his comment, I’ll post it here.

Warren, I’m not sure what your issue is here. When it started, you said that this candidate  was deserving of censure because he was in some way denigrating those who “fought Nazis.” However, the direct quote suggests nothing of the sort. It argues that trying to change the mind of those who hold Nazi-like beliefs is futile. I agree. I’m not going to waste time trying to convince a lunatic that his Holocaust-denial beliefs are mistaken. Might as well tell Michelle Bachman that the HPV vaccine is safe. Now, you’re accusing this candidate of a “paean to Mein Kampf.” Again, I see nothing of the sort in the expanded quoted text. In fact, I read it as an argument against book-burning. As the organizer of an event called Censored Out Loud here in Ottawa, I tend to disagree with book burning. Even when the book is the product of a homicidal maniac. I would argue in order to understand such human monsters as Adolf Hitler, we need to read and comprehend their writings. When you wrote “Web of Hate”, an excellent and courageous book, did you read neo-Nazi literature? Perhaps even Mein Kampf? Does your reading it imply an endorsement? Of course not. We owe it to ourselves as a society to understand those we oppose. Even the loathsome. I’m disappointed that you would put your political ambitions above a commitment to honesty and fairness. 

Rob Ford tells the media their questions. Then answers them. (Image from CBC)

Rob Ford is the mayor of Canada’s largest city. The dedicated Flacklife reader may note that I’ve covered Mayor Ford a couple of times here. The most notable post was the one in which I included audio of his interview (to use the term loosely) with CBC Radio’s national show “As It Happens” — an pre-booked interview which was 210 seconds of intense awkwardness.

That was October. This is August. And Rob Ford has worked hard on his media relations skills.

Today, he met with the Premier of Ontario, and afterward, met the Toronto media for a scrum. But this was a scrum with a difference. Listen and learn:

[audio:http://www.translucid.ca/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/robford1.mp3|titles=robford]

This is taking the Donald Rumsfeld school of media relations to an entirely new plateau. News conferences are far more pleasant when in two minutes you can tell the gathered reporeters what they would be asking, answer those questions, and leave.

I don’t know whether to rejoice at the innovation or… jump off a bridge.

Audio from the National Post’s Youtube channel.

Tony Cement demos a new Twitter app

While politics isn’t a huge part of my business life (unlike my compatriot Mark Blevis, for example), I am an armchair political quarterback of the first water. So this post by Maclean’s magazine parliamentary correspondent and blogger Aaron Wherry really caught my eye.

Minister of Industry Tony Clement is possibly the most passionate user of Twitter within Canada’s federal cabinet (although there are others.) And he should be given credit for not cutting and running despite being in charge of some controversial files, including changes to Canada’s census, an attempted takeover of Potash Corporation by Australian firm BHP Billiton, and most recently the government’s awarding of $300 million to Pratt & Whitney Canada to assist the company in carrying out research & development on new aircraft engines.

The announcement of this funding led to some stiff media criticism, and last night, as Wherry illustrates, Minister Clement took to his Twitter account to joust with several people, including journalist Andrew Coyne and economist Stephen Gordon (who had been intensely critical of Clement’s decision to discontinue the mandatory long-form census).

Clement puts on the gloves Twitter-style

The exchange lasted about two hours and ended at about midnight. I think it’s remarkable (in a good way) that Clement is doing this. But it makes me wonder about a couple of things. The Stephen Harper government has been painted as exceedingly locked-down in terms of communication, and there has been a long history of clashes between journalists and the government. But here’s a senior cabinet minister slugging it out with a journalist and others in the public twitterverse.

So I tip my hat to Minister Clement. I think it’s great that he’s doing this. And now, some tips that I think his tweeting can teach us all:

1. Use the tool that you are comfortable with. It could be argued that a blog might be a better tool for Clement. But for whatever reason or reasons, Clement likes Twitter. So he’s using Twitter. You can’t force a minister to do stuff. But I don’t think anyone’s twisting Clement’s arm to do this. He’s engaged. So work with that.
2. Don’t cut and run when things get tough. Clement has gone through some bruiser battles on Twitter. But he’s still there, and while he may end a given exchange, he doesn’t go to ground when critics appear. You have to brace yourself for the critics and be ready to respond.
3. Remember that you control your message, no matter the medium. In the exchange from last night, Andrew Coyne presses hard for Clement to disclose departmental research. Note that Clement doesn’t say “no.” He ignores the request. He could provide it at a later time, or he might not. Or Coyne could do an Access to Information request to obtain the research.
4. Choose a medium you can communicate in. Clement appears to be a tech savvy guy; he also appears to like cut and thrust. That makes Twitter useful for him. Furthermore, he uses the shorthand and conventions of the medium to his own advantage. He shortens words, uses hashtags, etc.
5. Choose a medium that matches your urgency and frequency needs. I mentioned in tip 1 that a blog might be better for Clement in terms of putting out fleshed-out arguments. But the conversationality wouldn’t be there, and the need to polish the writing would be higher. A podcast would require some sort of equipment (even Audioboo would require a mobile device), and it doesn’t have the immediacy of a tweet.

I hope these tips are useful. If you have any more to add, please leave them in the comments.

A Toronto company named EasyDNS has become a potent case study of two things: crisis communications and the limitations of journalism in the Internet age.

EasyDNS provides domain name servers for clients all over the place and is also a domain registrar. Until early December, there wasn’t much reason for an average person to know much about them.

But that was before a misunderstanding catapulted them into the middle of the largest news story of 2010. Someone, somewhere, confused EasyDNS in Toronto with EveryDNS in New Hampshire. EveryDNS had terminated its servicing of Wikileaks. This ticked off the supporters of Wikileaks, and when someone mistakenly identified EasyDNS as the villain, things went wrong.

Valleywag was the first major site to make the mistake, posting “Wikileaks loses its domain” on December 3rd. Within two hours of finding the Valleywag post, EasyDNS has gotten the post corrected and put up  a blog post of their own explaining the situation. After that, the Financial Times(registration required) the  New York Times “The Lede” blog, the Associated Press, and The Guardian all — independently — ran stories perpetuating the idea that a company who until now had no dealings with Wikileaks had struck the organization a blow.

Mark Jeftovic, EasyDNS CEO (Globe and Mail)

And in the meantime, EasyDNS’s team, led by CEO Mark Jeftovic (left), who seems a savvy and smart guy, were eliciting corrections and trying to keep their site and blog up to provide correct information. Aaaaannd… they were approached by Wikileaks to be one of several companies providing DNS services. By December 6, EasyDNS was providing service to Wikileaks.

You can read the full timeline in quite some detail in Timeline of an Epic Fail, the company’s blog post trying to compile all of this information. I’m more interested in teasing out some of the implications.

First: you are always at risk. I’m sure that if Mark Jeftovic at EasyDNS had someone tell him in November that his company would be misidentified as a “villain” in the biggest story of 2010, he’d have chuckled (or “chunkled”, as he writes in his timeline). But he was. One of my rules for crisis communication and response is that even things that are HIGHLY unlikely sometimes happen.

Second: as an organization, you need to be flexible enough to devote ALL your resources to resolving organizational crisis. At one workplace a few years ago, my team and I were running flat-out on a crisis that threatened customer service standards, financial damage, and public embarrassment. A few office doors away, I don’t think the response would have been “Crisis? Is this a crisis?” You need to have your whole organization be aware that a crisis state exists (not necessarily an EMERGENCY) and that action has to be quick, decisive and significant.

Second-and-a-half: Just because you’re totally focused on the crisis, don’t forget you have other business. EasyDNS was sending out e-mails to its customers as well as updating its own blog, as well as keeping feedback channels open on e-mail, twitter, and phone. They seem to have done a good job of keeping their existing customers informed and addressing their concerns.

Third: Be politely persistent with media who get something wrong. It’s shocking and disappointing that EasyDNS were badly served five separate times by media both blog-based and mainstream. It’s certainly made them more cynical about the quality of journalism. Who can blame them? But they did things right. What’s also interesting is that some media noted the error, while others simply corrected it in their online versions.

Fourth: Don’t be shy. EasyDNS was tireless in chasing down rumours and being proactive. Particularly if you’re “in the right” as they were, don’t just hope for things to “blow over”, be quiet, and wait for eyes to pass you over. You’re already part of the story. You might as well be a FULL part of it. I don’t know how “human” the company’s voice was before this, but their tweets, blog posts, and e-mails had a great voice, correcting errors and portraying emotion without coming off like ranters or bullies.

Fifth: recognize that in crisis lies opportunity. Jeftovic was already thinking this way when he wrote his blog post OK, so would we take on Wikileaks at this point? Now is there business benefit to EasyDNS actually doing this? Probably not directly. But my impression of EasyDNS has gone from zero — until yesterday when Jeftovic appeared on CBC Radio’s “Ontario Today” (you can listen to an interview with Jeftovic there) I’d never heard of ‘em — to “this is a company that has its act together and has some principles.” That can’t be bad.

Are there other lessons to be learned from this incident? You tell me. And attention Craig Silverman! There’s likely a whole chapter of “Regret the Error Volume 2″ in this story.

Cherry & Ford, in a Toronto Star photo

I’ve been dithering on whether to write about the investiture of Toronto’s new Mayor Rob Ford since I first heard that Don Cherry had been invited. You may recall that I covered Rob Ford earlier this year, when he didn’t quite do an interview with CBC Radio’s “As it Happens” on the day after his election.

For non-Canadian readers, Ford has styled himself as a plain-speaking council maverick who will stand up for the “little guy.” Don Cherry is a former NHL coach who is now a commentator on Hockey Night in Canada, a Saturday-night sporting institution. He’s also got a number of other gigs, from a radio commentator on sports radio networks to endorsements or ad appearances for things such as Cold-FX, the Quizno‘s restaurant chain, a series of hockey videos, and a chain of restaurants with the Don Cherry name over the door. He’s a passionate supporter of Canada’s military and a number of charities from organ donation to a hospice named after his late wife Rose, to whom he seemed to have been quite devoted.

Cherry is also a polarizing figure. He can seem belligerent, he doesn’t seem to suffer fools gladly, and he would likely place himself pretty far on the right of the political spectrum. In a recent byelection, he recorded a robocall in support of Conservative candidate Julian Fantino.

And then he was asked to attend Rob Ford’s investiture ceremony to place the chain of office around Ford’s neck (it should be noted that in most cases, the city clerk does this duty). Here’s what he said after he did the deed:

So. I was a little horrified at this speech. It seems to me that the investiture of a mayor and a council is a time for a little dignity and not for baiting of one’s ‘enemies’ and crude insults.

And I wasn’t alone. Spacing Toronto is holding a poll to design a “LEFT-WING PINKO” button, and others are busily printing t-shirts and other merchandise. Meanwhile, more right-wing media outlets are supporting Cherry as plain-spoken and just what was necessary. Joe O’Connor, for example, wrote in the National Post:

Be outraged over Cherry. Be embarrassed for Toronto. Or else be like this left wing, bike riding, print media wacko and lighten up. And remember this: we are talking about a 76-year-old Grampa.

But I think it’s too easy to simply dismiss Ford — or Cherry, for that matter — as ignorant or stupid. Ford is sending messages here, and I think they’re very specific. I think he’s specifically targeting the “pinko” contingent and smacking them verbally.

Now here are the public relations / communications questions, and I don’t know if I have answers or not:

1. What does it gain Ford to do this?
2. What are the circumstances – in politics or outside of them – when it’s appropriate to antagonize or alienate publics?

I would REALLY appreciate some insights on this. I rarely find myself unable to answer my own questions.

In Ontario, new mayors and councillors are settling in for a four-year term that began last night.

Here in Ottawa, Mayor Jim Watson was sworn in, along with the 24 city councillors, 10 of whom were new to council. That’s a big turnover in municipal politics, where incumbents are generally thought to have a great advantage in election races.

The ceremony was marked by a couple of interesting symbolic actions. First, instead of City Hall, the ceremony was held at the Shenkman Arts Centre, a new city-owned arts facility in Ottawa’s suburban east end. And second, rather than a wine and puff pastry reception, Watson ‘called a friend at Tim Horton’, and the ceremony featured donated coffee, cookies and donuts from the company. Apparently that saved taxpayers $25,000. Yay, I guess.

Eric Darwin of the truly excellent West Side Action blog attended the swearing-in ceremony. One paragraph way down in his post about the ceremony really caught my attention(emphasis mine):

While chatting with a new councillor and a few other residents, someone pointed out I wrote the West Side Action blog. The conversation then turned to the blog, recent posts, the value of the micro-reporting on neighborhood affairs … and I noticed the councillor had drifted away, no longer centre of attention. Conclusion: Councillors, start a blog today, blog daily, if you don’t write it yourself get a staffer to do so, and write in plain English and not bureaucratese. Get someone who can spell better than me.

Compare this with some similar advice given to Carleton University by David Reevely, the “Greater Ottawa” blogger (also truly excellent, by the way) at the Ottawa Citizen yesterday(again, emphasis mine):

People want to talk to people, not to Carleton as a corporate entity. There are no people [on Carleton's new community engagement site]. It’s just an empty room. Maybe Katherine Graham could blog. Just her — no committee approving the posts and making sure they all align with Carleton’s strategic plan and have enough Latinate words in them. Just be a human being talking about work she’s proud of.

Sensing a theme here, folks? Is it a sign of a collective failure that 10 years after Pyra Labs launched Blogger, this advice still has to be given? And attention Rob Ford: it’s not free, but it’s pretty close, and I’m sure we’d all be entertained.

Two stories have caught my eye in the last 12 hours or so.

First, new rules that Canada’s Treasury Board (essentially, the financial management arm for government operations) has brought in regarding hospitality expenses for public servants; second, a fight between the Toronto Star and provincial public servants over reports on Internet surfing habits by provincial public servants. What do these have in common? To my mind, questionable premises and easy targets.

Let’s talk feds first. According to a story in The Globe and Mail, Treasury Board minister Stockwell Day is “tightening the leash” on public servants. The Toronto Star’s headline was “No more booze for bureaucrats.” But when you read the stories, it becomes clear that these new rules are being set out to catch a fairly small number of cases. For example, this passage from a story in the Sun chain:

QMI Agency reported earlier this year that top bureaucrats had expensed $506 on liquor during an off-site meeting and spent more than $495 on booze during a farewell reception in 2008. Although the Treasury Board’s policy was silent, deputy ministers and ministers could approve alcohol spending.

Meanwhile, a story in the National Post reported “figures released to the NDP on Wednesday show that total government spending on hospitality reached $556,880 last fiscal year, up from $435,280 the previous year.”

Hm. We have a federal budget of more than $230,000,000,000. Hm. That seems to make around 4/1000ths of one per cent of the federal budget.

And as the partner of a public servant, I can tell you a couple of things. She rarely travels. Her travel requests are usually approved by three layers of management, up to either an assistant deputy minister or the deputy minister. She’s fought — and lost — battles to offer people coffee at full-day meetings. Food? Hah. Paid venues for meetings? Don’t bother asking. While I’ve no doubt that other departments aren’t as parsimonious, I somehow doubt mimosas in the morning and martinis at lunch whilst basking in a sauna are regularly — if ever — on the menu.

For those of us inside the Queensway, this sort of rule-making seems a bit like outlawing public servants buying themselves Ferraris. Sure, we don’t WANT that to happen. But how often does it happen anyway?

Moving on to the provincial story. Apparently, the Toronto Star is wrestling with the provincial government to obtain reports into the Internet surfing habits of civil servants. According to the story,

the government has spent the better part of a year arguing that taxpayers have no right to know how much time civil servants spend on social media sites, sports and entertainment websites or trying to access websites that show porn or promote “Racism and Hate” or “Drugs.”

Keep in mind that the government of Ontario blocks social media sites like Facebook and Youtube from its networks already. The reports the Star wants to obtain are those of investigations carried out by the province’s IT security folks. So why wouldn’t the government release such reports. One reason cited is the confidentiality of HR matters. I can see that being a concern. But I suspect there’s a fear of the “GOTCHA!” story that would result: “The Toronto Star has learned that one bureaucrat spent six hours per day watching Danish pornography…”

There’s a perception that public servants at all levels have it pretty soft. The concern that I have is that stories and initiatives like this play into the hands of solidifying that perception based on some incredibly unrepresentative samples. As a communicator, I understand the power of symbols to lead. The question is: in what direction do we want these symbols to lead us?

Stephen Duckett offers reporters a cookie (Calgary Herald)

Earlier this week, I wrote about Stephen Duckett’s unfortunate choice to focus more on his cookie than on the reporters chasing him for comment.

A quick summary: while Alberta Health Service, the agency managing that province’s health system, was going through some serious criticism over wait times and other issues, reporters buttonholed its CEO, Stephen Duckett, looking for comment. He wanted them to wait for a media availability that was happening in a short time, and instead of commenting kept walking, repeating “I’m eating my cookie!” in response to persistent questions.

Now, I read via CBC that Duckett is out as president and CEO of Alberta Health Services. The agency has issued a rather terse news release, saying:

AHS announcement

A couple of things to note here:

• the wording is important, particularly these phrases: “will no longer serve” and “both the Board and Dr. Duckett have jointly agreed that now is the time to move on.”
• According to the CBC story, one board member has resigned, while a Calgary Herald story suggests three board members may have resigned. This decision came direct from the province’s health minister, Gene Zwozdesky. The Herald story is somewhat unclear on who told them this, but apparently the agency’s board chair said “I did speak to the minister and his directions were clear.” Sounds like marching orders to me. This may also explain the resignation or resignations..
• I suspect the provincial government needed to be seen to be cleaning house on a messy situation. Keep in mind that a Conservative MLA was kicked out of caucus last week for criticizing health management in the province and that opposition parties are baying like hounds on a fox hunt on this.

Departures at the top of any organization are difficult to manage, and this one appears particularly messy. But to conclude that it’s because of one bad media encounter going viral leads me to two thoughts:

1. If this was because of “Cookiegate”, it’s a bad decision
2. If it wasn’t, there’s likely a great deal that we normal humans don’t — and won’t — ever know.

Don’t judge too quickly. We outsiders aren’t privy to what really is going on within the organization.

Update: The Globe and Mail has its analysis.

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)