Evasive responses doing a disservice

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/04/2023 (1320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Monday, our sister paper published an editorial that complained about the government use of emailed statements in place of living, breathing human beings on the other end of the phone line who can be questioned more directly on any given topic of the day.

In this particular editorial, the Winnipeg Free Press noted the situation had come up frequently with regard to ongoing questions about security at the Millennium Library, which had remained closed to the public for six weeks after a fatal stabbing at the location.

A recent story by the paper had several voices in its reporting, including those of “local activists, advocates, the president of CUPE, a city councillor and an emailed statement from a city spokesperson.”

What was missing, of course, was any word from a current employee in the library system, or even the city’s manager of library services. The emailed statement was supposed to suffice, even though at least one anonymous library employee had complained on a recently established Instagram that they were not allowed to speak for themselves and had been forbidden to speak with media.

This is one of the most useful means government has of controlling the message — and thus the flow of information — when it comes to questions from the news media. Gag the people who have anything useful to say and instead send out a meaningless statement rather than taking the time to answer questions and give the public a better understanding of the situation.

As the Free Press editorial noted, emailed responses are “an unsatisfactory contribution to news articles” in that they often “evade the initial question and provide no immediate means for followup queries or further explanation.”

For that reason, communications people in various levels of government — from the provincial to local health authority levels — have learned to love the prepared statement, particularly when dealing with difficult topics.

Just last month, for example, when the Sun learned about a recent exodus of nurses from the Glenboro Health Centre, Prairie Mountain Health did not answer specific questions about how many private nurses would be hired for Glenboro or what the cost would be. But instead, a spokesperson provided a written statement.

This is not an infrequent occurrence either, but rather a constant one. The term “communications people” has essentially become a misnomer.

Ministers, too, are finding solace in the almighty and nebulous government statement when faced with difficult topics. Take for instance last week, when the premier and several ministers and government MLAs gathered in Brandon to mark the official start of construction of this city’s new Western Manitoba Cancer Centre at the Brandon hospital.

First, a little preamble. In a March 23 post to her Twitter account, NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara alleged that during an exchange in the legislature earlier in the month, Health Minister Audrey Gordon had asked Asagwara how much they had paid sexual assault nurse examiners to resign. Note that the nurses had made headlines when several of them quit their casual positions en masse from Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre in the middle of a program overhaul.

That exchange has now become a sore spot for the governing Tories and their health minister as the NDP and Liberals call upon the legislative assembly to investigate the comments.

But last week, at the time of Gordon’s visit to Brandon, Winnipeg media were still attempting to get her on the record to answer the health critic’s allegations. She had apparently been ducking media questions on the matter.

So, at the request of our peers in Winnipeg, the Sun’s own health beat reporter prepared to speak with Gordon to get a response on the record if we had time. It would have been the right venue — a public and high-profile health-related event involving Gordon and the premier.

But as it turned out, the situation was quite odd. Though the premier was there on time — and even a bit early — Gordon arrived late and was rushed into an adjoining room to prepare for the announcement. And when questions about the new health facility were complete and reporters prepared to scrum with the premier, the health minister was whisked back to the same adjoining room and away from the media.

For such a large government announcement, it seemed odd for a provincial health minister not to take more time with media and the gathered crowd of hospital staff and construction industry reps.

Our health reporter followed, and managed two event-relevant questions to the health minister from the doorway of the room before being told that was all the time they had. When she attempted to followup with the minister outside as the delegation completed a photo-op near a hospital construction zone, she was quickly told that a prepared statement regarding the legislature allegation would be sent to the Free Press reporter.

Governments need to be more accountable to the people who elected them, and as representatives of the public, it’s our job to try to hold them to account. But these kinds of so-called communications strategies are doing a disservice to Manitobans by leaving the public less informed.