“I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

That was how some journalists seemed to respond last week to an open letter I wrote about how government communications staff are helping to kill democracy.

But, if we want to save it, we’re going to need to do more than just throw open our windows, stick our heads out and yell about the non-answers we often get from those spin doctors.

In that letter, which was published in J-Source, The Tyee, DeSmog Canada and the Yukon News, I wrote about how those non-answers are actually a refusal to “provide the public with information. And if the public doesn’t know what their government is actually doing, it can continue doing things the public wouldn’t want it to do.”

Those words were shared on Facebook and retweeted hundreds of times, with one reporter in the Yukon stating, “I think it’s fair to say the frustration levels of journalists in this country are rising.”

That frustration has been well-earned.

Compared to the United States, Canadian governments release fewer public records that reporters can use to find stories that don’t come from a news release or news event.

Our governments also confound access to the records they don’t release by having weakfreedom of information laws.

And many public bodies have policies that restrict or prohibit their employees from speaking with reporters.

That means communications departments (the spin factories and propaganda shops of government) can be one of the only sources journalists have for timely information.

Opacity is winning the war against transparency. And if Canadian journalists want to turn the tide, they must do more in the fight against that secrecy – something some American news outlets expressly allow their reporters to do.

For example, in a recent statement to Politico, a New York Times spokesperson stated the newspaper is “not neutral on the issue of press freedom. We have vigorously opposed actions that inhibit legitimate reporting.”

Meanwhile, National Public Radio’s ethics handbook, which prohibits political activities, makes an exception for “issues directly related to our journalistic mission (e.g. First Amendment rights, the Freedom of Information Act, a federal ‘shield law’).”*

Here in Canada, I simply recommended in my open letter that journalists should let our audiences know when spin doctors don’t respond to our questions, provide non-answers or interfere with attempts to interview public officials.

Perhaps journalists should even include that protocol in the emails we send to government spokespeople, letting them know that we also won’t be using their non-answers for the sake of false balance?

In some way ways, that would be similar to David Carr‘s approach to reporting. Speaking to National Public Radio’s Terry Gross, the late New York Times media critic explained:

If it’s going to be a hard story, one of the things I always say is, ‘This is going to be a really serious story and I’m asking very serious questions and it behoves you to think it through and really work on answering and defending yourself…And if they don’t engage, I just tell them, ‘Well you know what, you better put the nut cup on because this isn’t going to be pleasant for anyone.’

If we did the same thing with government communications staff and their tactics, they won’t surprised when a reporter such as the Georgia Straight’s Travis Lupick thinks about writing a sentence such as this: “A [Canadian Border Services Agency] spokesperson repeatedly ignored questions and read unrelated bullet points written by an anonymous spin doctor.”

And that way, maybe we won’t hear those unrelated bullet points at all.

Postscript: Last week, CBC Daybreak South succeeded in getting Andrew Wilkinson, the minister responsible for British Columbia’s spin doctors, to address complaints about the state of government communications (including my open letter).

Provincial flacks “initially declined” to respond to those complaints. But Wilkinson made an appearance on Daybreak South after the program tried contacting “each and every MLA” in its listening area about that issue.

You can listen to the interview for yourself on Soundcloud. But suffice it say Wilkinson, somewhat appropriately, appeared to have his own talking points for that conversation. So, just as appropriately, I’ve filed freedom of information requests to obtain them.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• The Canadian Press reports a new government policy requires all possible breaches of cabinet confidentiality – “however slight” – to be “immediately reported to the Prime Minister’s Office or officials in the Privy Council Office, the government’s bureaucratic nerve centre.”

• In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette said he wants a “coercive baseball bat” that will force government departments to provide him with economic and legislative data “on a timely and free basis.”

• CBC News reports, “A former top adviser to then-Employment Minister Jason Kenney has had his knuckles rapped by the federal ethics watchdog for accepting gala tickets from companies and interest groups registered to lobby his own department.” During that investigation, Ethics and Conflict of Interest Commissioner Mary Dawson also found the adviser, Michael Bonner, “could not provide me with any emails related to my examination because he had deleted them, as his usual practice was to delete emails every two weeks. He added that deleted emails of ministerial staff remain on the server for about four weeks, but are then lost forever as they are not ‘archived.'” (hat tip: Mike de Souza)

• Greenpeace Canada’s climate and energy campaign Keith Stewart has two suggestions for the bureaucrats running the system that allows Canadians to file access to information requests online. First: “Why not let us set up accounts so we don’t have to re-enter all my deets each time?” Second: “It’d be awesome if the receipt for the $5 fee included the text of our ATIP request.”

• The Globe and Mail’s Lawrence Martin writes that even though Stephen Harper “may well hold some sort of record for prime ministerial secrecy and attempts to stifle access,” many of his predecessors have also “held the fourth estate in low regard.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• Harper isn’t known for “being terribly accessible to journalists,” reports the Huffington Post. Nevertheless, he sat down for an interview with Costco Connection, the “lifestyle magazine for Costco members” – something that “raised some eyebrows on Twitter.”

• Vice Canada reports the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has denied an access request for the amount of money it paid to cellphone and Internet providers to informally obtain customers’ personal information. Such informal requests were deemed unconstitutional following a June 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling. (hat tip: CJ Ciaramella)

• The Canadian Press’s Steve Rennie tweets that a recent access to information requests yielded 15 pages from the Privy Council Office. But the only page that wasn’t exempted was the one with the Government of Canada’s logo.

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The Toronto Star reports Ontario still lacks a “standard notification system” to alert journalists when court-ordered publication bans are being considered.

• The Vancouver Sun reports, “Poultry marketing boards are refusing to release biosecurity audits of farms after the avian flu outbreak in the Fraser Valley citing, in part, the potential for farmers to be targeted by animal rights activists.”

• The BC NDP has introduced a Whistleblowers Protection Act that would safeguard “people reporting government mismanagement, negligence or wrong-doing. It also calls for more routine public disclosure of government operations.” As an opposition private member’s bill, the Act has almost no chance of passing the province’s legislature.

• CBC News reports New Brunswick’s access commissioner Anne Bertrand has launched one of two investigations into “controversial trips to Larry’s Gulch, the government-owned fishing lodge…The controversy started when a newspaper editor accepted a free trip to Larry’s Gulch in 2013 with Daniel Allain, the chief executive officer of NB Liquor.” Bertrand is looking into whether documents related to that trip were “deliberately altered before being released.”

• “Ontario’s independent budget watchdog is finally being unleashed – 21 months after the New Democrats forced the Liberals to create the post,” according to the Toronto Star.

• In response to a freedom of information request by freelancer Bob Mackin, the British Columbia government writes there were no briefing notes or issue notes prepared for the province’s transportation minister when he announced the delay of a major transit project.

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• The City of Winnipeg’s administration is refusing to “make public any of the reports” that justify the need to “expropriate 20 acres of land it sold to a developer four years ago,” according to the Winnipeg Free Press.

Have a news tip about about the state of democracy, openness and accountability in Canada? You can email me at this address.

* = I am indebted to an article by The Atlantic’s David Graham which cites NPR’s impartiality policy, as well as the New York Times spokesperson’s quote. All the credit for finding that article goes to my department’s librarian Margy MacMillan.

This article originally appeared on Sean Holman's Unknowable Country.

Image Credit: Eric via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

“Forget press releases. Forget press agents, publicists. Forget advertorials and sponsored content and native content. Forget all of it.

If what you want for your company, your government bureau, is total control of a news story, why bother with the pesky journalists who are going to check the facts and get the other side of the story?

No. Here’s what you do: write your own news story.”

That’s the sardonic strategy Jesse Brown, reporter and host of Canadaland, recently outlined on a show dedicated to News Canada, a federally-funded public relations body and news wire service which was recently awarded $1.25 million to distribute hand-out news content meant to “inform and educate Canadians on public issues.”

The story of News Canada receiving a 25 per cent increase in government funding from Public Works Canada was first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter Tom Korski.

News Canada Ltd. president Shelly Middlebrook told Korski the service provides content to media editors and that “journalists either pick it up or they don’t.”

Middlebrook added the republished content must be labeled “News Canada” (or sometimes simply “NC”) to give credit to the service, “just like the Canadian Press,” she said.

“This is educational, informational, lifestyle news,” she said. “It’s not breaking news.”

Middlebrook said a significant portion of Canada's dailies, community newspapers, cable news broadcasters and radio stations across the country publish News Canada content.

Is it propaganda?    

Some question the role the news service plays in the Canadian media where ever-constrained newsrooms are desperate for content – something News Canada provides to outlets completely free of charge.

But there still may be a cost – it’s perhaps just offset onto the public and its need for balanced information.

As Korski details, some of the ‘stories’ produced by News Canada are decidedly pro-government. As in the case of these features about Canada’s Space Agency and the federal government's “win-win solutions" for First Nations.

Korski writes:

Samples of pro-government TV handouts including one item lauding the Canadian Space Agency, including “interviews” with two officials; and another celebrating cabinet’s record on Aboriginal land claim settlements. The script reads: “How do you right a past wrong? Well, the Government of Canada has been working towards finding solutions to do just that.” The report continues, “Canada has made a commitment to reconciling relationships with First Nations people”; “The future looks bright. More win-win solutions are in the works to bring closure and justice for all.”

Other stories are used to promote Public Works Canada, the body that funds News Canada. In addition to providing the $1.25 million to News Canada, Public Works also said it will edit story scripts and provide officials in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal for “in-person interviews or testimonials.”

When asked if the content was propaganda, Middlebrook said simply, “I don’t think so.”

“If it is, editors won’t pick it up. It has to be balanced. If it was too propaganda-based, editors wouldn’t use it.”

But Sean Holman, founder of Public Eye and a journalism professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, sees things differently.

When it comes to government publicity, “this is no different in a lot of ways from what has come before,” Holman said.

“The only difference is that a) there may be more receptivity to publishing this material because of a desperate need for content by media organizations, and b) it is being packaged in a way that resembles news, that resembles journalism and reporting,” he said. “Those are the only two principled differences.”

“But it’s certainly not journalism and it’s certainly not reporting,” he added.

“So is it propaganda? Sure, it’s propaganda in the same way that everything the governments puts out there, from their public relations arm, their communications arm, is propaganda. It is trying to convince people of a certain position. It is omitting certain information that would not benefit the client, etc.,” Holman said.

Public Works coordinator of Harper Government PR

Public Works Canada is the body that oversees and coordinates Canada’s advertising.

In recent years the Harper government has come under fire for expensive advertising campaigns meant to influence public opinion on contentious political subjects such as the Alberta oilsands.

The Harper government has also been criticized for too-strictly controlling federal communications, most especially in regards to the restrictions placed on federal scientists often prevented from speaking with the media, the general public and at academic conferences.

As Public Works states in its last annual report, its work is meant to “ensure that advertising activities align with government priorities.”

Government of Canada advertising process from the Public Works 2012-2013 annual report.

According to the most recent annual Public Works ad report, released in 2014, Canada spent more than $14 million on advertising Canada’s Economic Action Plan (which was called "propaganda" by survey respondents) and an additional $8.2 million on its Responsible Resource Development campaign (which was, in part, responsible for Canada's severely weakened environmental legislation). Both advertising campaigns placed heavy emphasis on the Alberta oilsands as central to Canada’s economic future.

These two campaigns were Canada’s most expensive advertising projects for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, dwarfing the amount of money spent on any other advertising effort.

The $1.25 million supplied to News Canada for publicity work falls outside the disclosed advertising funds mentioned in Public Works annual report, meaning this is additional money devoted to government communications above and beyond its advertising efforts.

DeSmog Canada reached out to Public Works for additional information and comment but no response was given at the time of publication.

Not clear to audiences News Canada is a publicist

According to Korski, it is important News Canada is seen as a publicity outlet that works on behalf of clients, in this case the Government of Canada.

Yet News Canada might not be doing enough to distinguish itself as a PR firm, as opposed to an independent press outlet like the Canadian Press.

News Canada content is “identified with a credit slug to News Canada,” Korski told Canadaland.

“Now whether that’s an Orwellian term or not I guess is a subjective matter of opinion. Whether a viewer, a reader, or a listener would understand that News Canada is a publicist, or whether they would confuse that with an actual news organization that covers Canada, is a point of discussion.”

Screenshot of News Canada webpage.

Korski said that a further layer of obfuscation is added by the fact that News Canada does not disclose on whose behalf the content is produced.

“News Canada would not identify to readers, viewers or clients the source of the material, in this case the department of Public Works,” he told Canadaland.

“I think it’s designed that way.”

Listen to Tom Korski’s full interview with Jesse Brown on Canadaland. You can read Korski’s original story on Blacklock’s Reporter.

Image Credit: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Photo Gallery.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.