Brodbeck should check facts before outrage
City affairs columnists have it easy. Local politicians serve up mistakes and miscues like so many softballs at a Blue Jays batting practice. I’m glad we have two daily papers in Winnipeg holding city politicians to account. It’s just too bad when facts get in the way of righteous outrage like they did with Tom Brodbeck’s column in the Winnipeg Sun today.
Brodbeck is famed in political circles for his surly, populist attacks on the misuse of public cash, the laziness of bureaucrats and the general incompetence of society in general. Today, he attacked the city for supposedly increasing its budget for public relations staff and consultants. Citing the increases to salaries to a couple of city staffers, he expressed holy roller indignation over the sheer waste of it all.
Too bad it isn’t true, or at least not wholly true. As I noted here last year, the City of Winnipeg has actually gutted its communications and public relations staff over the past few years, slashing the head count from 20 in 2004 to 4 in 2008 and now it’s down further with the departure of one more senior staffer this summer.
Contrary to what Brodbeck thinks, or doesn’t as the case may be, having a capable communications team is a vital business function these days for corporations and municipalities alike. And no, it’s not about spin. And it’s not just about media relations. As important as it is to have good relations with the media, it’s not all about them. For the city, it’s about communicating about significant issues, policies, regulations and services directly to taxpayers and clients of city services. Whether that’s a website, a brochure, a leisure guide, a tax form, a garbage day calendar or a radio commercial, it’s all important.
Communications departments also take on the job of making sure employees are well informed about a host of issues - from regulations and service issues to employee benefits and right down to department picnics. This kind of thing is vital because it informs people and when people are armed with knowledge, they can do their jobs better. When they’re robbed of it, morale skids, taxpayers complain, and the business of running the city slows to a grind.
Brodbeck’s larger point of how the city’s payroll is rising too quickly is worth examining, but don’t hoist this one on the PR folks, Tom. They’ve already been run through. Perhaps the remaining rump of PR people were paid more because they were doing the jobs of 20?
July 7th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Well said as always Adam. It’s easy to attack the PR folks. It’s all-to-often seen as the department that is expendable.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I find it ironic that such misinformation about the role of public relations comes from a guy who is sworn to fight spin. So who’s spinning the story here?
July 8th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Eesh, Brodbeck is really not worth reading. I remember responding to a column (and having it published in the sun with a pithy comment of “that’s what you think”) many years ago that took to task Brodbeck’s assertion that the City of Winnipeg was spending too much money funding libraries instead of dealing with “real issues” like road repair and crime. Brodbeck even pontificated: “read the survey Mayor Murray, people don’t care about libraries.” He quoted a survey that said libraries were “third” on the list of priorities taxpayers listed as essential services: fighting crime and road repair were numbers one and two. I personally couldn’t believe how high libraries scored given that signing out books for reading is rarely a “top of mind issue” and certainly not one covered in the media, so hurray for libraries, clearly the winner in the city survey and worthy of far more support than what they have been getting. Of course, that is, unless you’re Brodbeck who really doesn’t care that literacy is a socially significant public expenditure.