Feb

24

We Get the Message….and the shaft

February 24, 2006 |

By the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year, a total of 216 people will be working in the government’s Public Affairs Bureau - engaged in organizing advertising, dealing with the media and otherwise trying to get government’s message out to the public. That’s up from 202 people working there at present.
the tyee

And roughly 200 more people than can possibly be justified. (And that is not counting all the folks in the ad agencies and consultancies who are not actually on the payroll but rather just suck the teat.)

Why is it necessary to have 216 flacks? I mean, seriously, there are all of thirty major media outlets - tops - in BC. Toss in a couple of dozen small town newspapers and radio stations and you have, maybe, 50 outlets. Which suggests that the government of British Columbia is so worried about its image that it has enough flacks to put four each on every media outlet in the province.

In a related part of the budget papers the Tyee’s Barbara McLintock discovers that the government plans to go all out on another front:

A new government program aims to let everyone who writes a letter to a cabinet minister at least receive a response letting them know their correspondence has been received. In 2004-05, only 22 percent of letter-writers received a response within two weeks. The government’s goal is to increase that to 80 percent within the next year.
the tyee

Here’s a piece of unsolictied management advice for my friends in the BC Government - teach the flacks new tricks - have them write the letters from the Ministers.

I know, it is a pretty radical idea. But live dangerously.


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