Government Emails Not for Attribution by Joe Fries
Pity those poor B.C. government spokespeople.
Imagine how horrible it must be to have your name stripped and be known only by your job title: “Hey, plumber! Come fix my toilet!”
In the government’s case, it’s spokesperson. As in: “If we don’t fix the road this year we might do it next year,” said a spokesperson for the Transportation Ministry.
According to legend, reporters used to be able to call a person to get information about something and then attribute the information to that very same person.
That still works for the most part today, but not if the person works for the B.C. government.
In that case, a reporter usually gets directed to a communications officer who works for the province’s Government Communications and Public Engagement branch. The communications officer takes the request, formulates a response that includes a couple of key messages and little of substance, then sends it back to the reporter via email with a stipulation the information be attributed to the spokesperson, but not by name.
Let me give you an example.
Penticton RCMP issued a press release in September claiming it cost $250,000 to police Boonstock and urging the promoter to settle up with the government.
I sent the Justice Ministry a few questions related to the release, mainly regarding whether the government had received any payment from Boonstock, and received some answers from a spokesman with a caveat that the response was “not for attribution.”
I followed up with a spokesman and was told there was “no one available” that day to which the information could be attributed, despite the fact a living, breathing human presumably crafted the response.
So in my story I attributed the information to “an unsigned statement” hoping that would draw the ire of readers. It didn’t.
A month later I did a follow-up story about the Boonstock police bill and asked the same spokesman if the promoter had settled up yet. The one-sentence response said no, and I included it in my story and attributed it to the spokesman by name since he didn’t say otherwise.
Sure enough, he called the next day to ask why I used his name. Seems he caught some flak for getting his name in print. Naughty boy.
I’ve fought this battle with myriad spokespeople and it doesn’t help my case when they unhelpfully point out that bigger publications, like the Globe and Mail, are seemingly OK with quoting unnamed spokespeople.
Some spokespeople have told me off the record they’re only required to drop their names when working for a minister who wants to be the sole spokesman in his kingdom, ostensibly to avoid confusing the public.
Although there are some politicians with egos big enough to support that theory, I don’t buy it. Most of us commoners understand the difference between a spokesperson and a minister.
It looks to me like a way to dodge accountability, since it’s hard to hold unnamed people to account, which is silly when we’re talking about people who are paid by the public to communicate with the public.
Granting people anonymity is — or ought to be — a rarity in journalism, reserved for cases when a source’s safety or employment is at risk by speaking out on an issue of public interest, not when quoting a paid professional communicator who is just doing his job.
Look below to see just how routine these “not for attribution” responses have become.
Joe Fries is a reporter for the Penticton Western News