Dressed up as a “fact check,” the City of Prince George posted a statement on its website last month called “What is a public notice and why has the City stopped advertising public notices in the local newspaper?”
The statement gives a brief historical explanation of the legal changes that have allowed the city to stop advertising its legal notices in the Citizen before diving into the benefits, which is little more than cherry picking and misinformation.
“Weekly press deadlines no longer apply and a notice can be published in only hours allowing an application to move forward more quickly,” it states.
Who benefits from a fast-moving application? Area residents that may have concerns and need time to gather information and give feedback or local government and developers?
“The cost to advertise public notices in the local newspaper is significant,” it states. “In 2021, the last full year that the City placed notices in the Prince George Citizen, the City spent $141,545 in combined advertising expenses in the Development Services and Legislative Services divisions, for statutory notice newspaper publishing.”
No mention of how much the city is spending on the increased number of city communications staff, outside consultants and Facebook. Is that more or less than its advertising budget with the Citizen?
“The City’s statutory public notice bylaw states that newspaper notices may still be provided if the matter affects the community at large or when significant public interest is anticipated,” it states.
But who decides what is of “significant public interest?” Would that be the same city staff that decide that not even mayor and council, never mind taxpaying residents, should be told about multi-million dollar cost overruns on public projects?
“Of 38 million Canadians, there are over 36 million internet users and 33.1 million social media users.”
Not sure where this unattributed data came from but it’s wrong. Statistics Canada says that about 15 percent of the Canadian population (roughly six million people) is 14 years old and under. So every single Canadian above the age of 14 is on social media? And every single man, woman and child in Canada above the age of five is online?
The unattributed data also points to the fact the statement is unsigned. Is it the view of mayor and council or just the faceless, nameless bureaucrats paid by taxpayers to send out “fact checks?”
Communications professionals are hired in government and the private sector to represent their employers and no one else. The job of the communications staff at the City of Prince George is to shine the best light on the City of Prince George as a municipal government body, meaning their allegiance is to the institution first, even at the expense of local residents.
That’s why someone who only follows the City of Prince George’s Facebook page for “local news” wouldn’t know Prince George was chosen by the Canadian Association of Journalists this year as the most secretive local municipality in Canada and why our local government was chosen.
In the not-so-distant past, private and public sector communications professionals included the word “marketing” in their titles and job descriptions. That’s because they recognized that the precise word in English for communicating a sanitized view of an organization, its staff and its goods and services, promoting only the good things it does and none of the bad, is “marketing.”
That word is honest because it recognizes the agenda behind the communications.
That doesn’t make communications professionals bad people. Several former Citizen reporters and editors are now local communications professionals (good pay, less stress, far more anonymity). For two years, from 2010 to 2012, I was the Prince George Public Library’s communications coordinator.
My job? Promote and market the excellent services offered by the library’s wonderful staff.
Definitely not my job? To inform residents and library users about ongoing security issues, from physical and verbal assaults on employees and customers to sex and drug use in the public washrooms.
Communications professionals do just one part of the job. Journalists and news media outlets like the Citizen do both, offering the good and bad news in Prince George.
The City of Prince George is certainly free to defend its decision to reduce spending advertising money in the Citizen for legal notices.
But by presenting that justification as a “fact check” statement, the City of Prince George is asserting that it – and only it – is the reliable source of information about what’s happening in local government.
That’s not marketing anymore, that’s propaganda.
Neil Godbout is the Citizen’s editor.
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