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by Duncan Matheson
I want you to know how honored I am to be here as your token spin doctor. Trouble is, I'm not sure what a spin doctor is...or more accurately, where you draw the line between what I do and what you do, and where in the heck the spin part fits in.
I was watching NB Now last night, and they had this feature out of BC on Canadian environmentalists, gearing up for another summer of tree-hugging or whatever, attending a three or four day instructional camp where American environmentalists, the real pros, were teaching them the finer points of getting media attention.
When I was a journalist I was fond of a definition of the media that I had heard once from Dick Smythe. "The media's job is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable" or something like that.
And I applaud the fact that the media is there to present the case for the little guy. Now stay with me, because I am going to cleverly bring this back to the subject of spinning.
To use the case of the environmentalists, for some reason they are seen by the media as the David in what is often portrayed as a David vs Goliath fight. How an organization with the resources of the Sierra Club can be focused as the little guy is beyond me but that's the way the media spins it.
So think about this....Are you not the real spin doctors.
But talk to reporters....not you guys of course, but other reporters, and they speak of spin doctors, or if I am permitted, Public Relations practitioners, as somehow people to be avoided. You wouldn't want your daughter associating with one.
I know whereof I speak because I was a case in point. Been there. Done that. Somehow, I couldn't take seriously any story idea brought to me by a PR person, and I certainly didn't want to interview one. Somehow the news wouldn't meet my pure as the driven snow standards, and certainly anything one of those people told me wasn't to be believed. Because...it would have been spun. Spun to serve the devious ends of the fat walleted bastards who were trying to manipulate me.
Well, what can I tell you. A change of career later, and I realize I was wrong.
Of course I spin stories, if that is what you want to call using the facts to present a client's case in the best possible light. But I have never and will never lie, nor will I ever deceive. Our policy, and one we drill home in our media courses, which is another topic I would love to get into if time permitted, is to be as straightforward and honest as possible. No stonewalling. No "no comment". And no hiding.
So what do we so-called "spin doctors do".
Well, if I can look at this philosophically for a moment. we help people who are not part of the news media gain access to the media; we help them to be heard.
Or from another perspective, we help the news media's readers, listeners and viewers to hear more voices.
Just as it is true that an open democracy relies on a free, unfettered press to keep itself sufficiently well informed to make judgments, in voting booths for example, that same democracy benefits from a public relations segment of society that works to open the news media to the widest possible access. We help, in other words, to make the news media more of a public forum, and this, I trust you will agree, is a good thing. It can lead to more informed discussion and debate, which helps to shape public opinion, which helps to shape government.
Less philosophic, but where the rubber meets the road, I think the relationship between Public Relations people, or "spin doctors" if you insist, and the media, is or should be, a symbiotic one.
We are in a position to help you. If you need someone with a particular point of view to balance a panel, call us. Of course we want to help our clients get their messages out, but if they fit your purposes, what's wrong with that?
The best way we can help our clients is by being helpful to you. We know you are going to question what we say. I hope you question what everybody says. That's the way it's supposed to work.
Look for the spin. Test it journalistically to see if it holds muster. And search out the other side. By all means. But don't be so jaundiced as to summarily dismiss anything that comes from public relations as propaganda. It will be spun, but it will also, in all likelihood, be honest and verifiable.
And speaking of spin...one last word. When Jane Barry was questioned a couple of weeks ago after 2000 people turned out to rally against her decision to replace the Moncton city force with the RCMP, her response was that she was pleased that so many people think so highly of these officers because they are the very ones who will be protecting them after the RCMP assumes jurisdiction. Don't know who came up with that, but a master spin of the finest order. And...you have got to admit, it was honest.
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