The power of apology

"Sorry from me, what does it absolutely mean?"

Louise Jones, interim Chief Executive Officer, Eastern Health

Some public relations practitioners specialize in reputation management.  We all do to one extent or another, but in some mystical parts of the world, there is enough business to sustain an entire practice on it.

Tiger Two is a public relations firm in the United Kingdom that, among other things, has a blog devoted to online reputation management.

Follow that link and you'll find a post summarising a recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the five typical approaches corporations take to online comments that may have an effect on the corporation reputation:

1. The Do-Nothing Approach
2. Putting Lawyers on it
3. Throw Money at the Problem
4. Invite and Engage the Critics
5. Stop it before it Starts

Those five describe what most companies and individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador do when something out there is said which can adversely affect reputation. The Premier accuses you publicly of unfair trade practices without a shred of evidence?  Well, publicly traded Aliant opted to do nothing.

That pretty much is the anatomy of Eastern Health's ongoing breast cancer scandal. They opted to stay quiet - a form of doing nothing - and then when things got dicey, the lawyers wound up on the job.  The result of their approach is playing out on the Internet and in newsrooms right now as a result of a public inquiry into the mess. Before it is done, there'll be quite a lot of money thrown at the problem in various ways, including one suspects a settlement to the members of a class action lawsuit.

The list above was compiled in order of popularity.  If you check with a public relations practitioner, especially one who specializes in reputation management, the first one they'd suggest if the fifth one on the list.

That's why we've observed both here and at Persuasion Business that the entire breast cancer scandal would have turned out much differently if Eastern Health nd the provincial department to which it reports handled things differently at the outset.

Truth be told, if Louise Jones had offered a simple apology on behalf of the organization she leads, she might have started the long journey out of what must surely be a very dark place for a great many people.  One of the reasons her organization is in the mess it is in at the moment stems from the largely impersonal, bureaucratic way which the organization as a whole relates to the people who come to them for care.

That's what they are:  people who come to a hospital for care. They are weak, emotional, confused and often fragile and vulnerable, none moreso than a woman facing breast cancer.

The old word for them is patient and while it is an old word, it carries with it the old attitude of care and of a strong personal relationship between the healer and the person seeking healing.  Doesn't matter if the healer is a doctor, nurse, or pharmacist or one of a raft of other health professionals. Old isn't a bad thing, in this case.

But to Eastern Health, as an organization, they were and are clients. Jones referred to them in her scrum as clients, as cold and impersonal a term as anyone ever imagined to describe sick people. It's not Jones' fault.  Her training and her professional and work environment adopted that term some time ago,  Some people in the health care business use it instinctively and often without much consideration. 

The fact that so impersonal a word came to her so effortlessly tells a lot about where her head is, that is, as the person who singularly speaks for the entire regional care system.  It sets the tone at the top, or, in this instance, perpetuates it.  A leader sets the standard for the behaviour of those below in the organization. Even in the bits we've seen thus far, the tone at the top was often wrong.

It still is.

Impersonal and bureaucratic pretty much sums up the response thus far to the scandal. You see, to some, an apology might be seen by some as an admission of liability.  The lawyers (and the government) would scream at the prospect of what, to their way of thinking, increases the payout. Saying nothing and doing nothing is the traditional strategy designed to minimize legal risk and with it, the assumption goes that financial risk is limited as well.

Sounds logical and obvious enough, but in this instance, an apology is all many of the witnesses called to testify at the inquiry so far were looking for. They sought any indication that someone actually cared.  Cared enough to tell them up front that mistakes had been made.  Cared enough to tell them in a timely way, let alone at all what was going on.

That sounds even more logical and obvious: a patient looking for some sign of caring from a health organization.

An apology is also a sign of responsibility.  Someone apologizes and takes responsibility even if if he or she personally did not make the mistake.  Taking responsibility for other people's cock-ups comes with a leader's job.  The tone at the top of the top doesn't encourage that behaviour these days - taking responsibility -  but that's another story. 

Suffice it to say that in her poorly considered comments last week, Louise Jones set entirely the wrong tone in relation to this inquiry and the breast cancer issue. She set the wrong tone for many of the people who work under Louise Jones, diligently labouring every day to deliver care despite working environment both physical, and one suspects mental.

Again, she's not alone in setting the wrong tone. Ross Wiseman's easy condemnation of a doctor who, we learned this week threw a sheet of paper at a patient, screams Ross Wiseman's complete lack of appreciation - former health care, human resources bureaucrat that he is - for the stresses and strains physicians and others have been working under as a direct consequence of the laboratory cock-ups.

Imagine for a moment, the doctor, who is foremost in delivering care for extremely sick patients, who trusts that labs are working properly and makes a treatment recommendation based on those lab results only to find that the whole thing was wrong. He made a mistake  - not his fault - and his patient suffered, in some cases suffered grievously, as a consequence.

And if that weren't enough, because of management decisions made way above his head in the organization, a patient who ought to have been contacted by someone else is now sitting in front of him demanding answers he cannot give. 

Wiseman is lucky that all doctors, nurses and lab staff have done  - let alone patients in this case - is toss the odd piece of paper.  Wiseman is lucky too, to be so far out of touch, so distant and removed from the human issues in the breast cancer scandal that he can willingly, almost cavalierly condemn another but hold himself as somehow a model of virtue in the process.

Ask Fred Kasirye about Wiseman's virtue.

Does he forget the facilities report scandal?  A guy who all but lied about hospital facilities reports to the media and the public has nothing to be the least bit proud of. Hypocrisy just isn't a strong enough word for it and goodness knows, Wiseman and his colleagues have made "hypocrisy" a cliche these days in many cases on many issues.

A simple apology could have done so much:  changed tone, showed an acceptance of responsibility, given a sign, no matter how small, of humanity instead of cold bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, Louise Jones was right in some of her other remarks to reporters outside the inquiry hearings.  She said  "the story [of what occurred] is not going to be told for some time."  It isn't.  That's largely because the organizational culture led to a do-nothing strategy at the front end and that same impersonal management culture still pushes for doing the least at every step. 

Take Jones' comments on the value of an apology that the bureaucratic culture is firmly entrenched, despite the revelations so far. If at the end of this inquiry, the patients involved in this scandal receive an apology only after the legal bills have been tallied, then nothing will have changed at all.

At that point, "I'm sorry" will truly have no meaning.

Here's hoping that in the time it takes for the story to unfold, someone somewhere in the health ministry or Eastern Health learns the simple human value of simple human words:  "I'm sorry."

-srbp-

Breast cancer numbers larger than previously announced

More than 1,000 women have been re-tested as part of the breast cancer testing scandal at Eastern Health and of those, 322 have died.

That's more than double the number previously announced.

The new figures come from a high-level government committee which was appointed last year to co-ordinate the provincial government's participation in the Cameron Inquiry.

Take a look at the scrum tape, posted with CBC's story on the government announcement.

Notice that reporters asked direct, relevant questions about the number deceased patients who were tested and what their test results showed. The reporters are asking more informed questions because they are more informed, but notice that neither health minister Ross Wiseman nor Eastern health's chief operations officer could answer the question.

Well, not that they couldn't answer the question.  They just wouldn't.  They decided that sorting out the answer to the commission to answer the reporters' question on a case by case basis.

Take a look at the terms of reference for the Cameron Inquiry, though and you won't see a direction to undertake such a detailed examination. Notice that when David Cochrane puts the hard question again about 12 minutes into the 15 minute session, Wiseman shifts his answer.  Now, Wiseman says, there is a process involved and that a certain update is being provided.  Additional detail will follow.

Those are two dramatically different answers.

One is that the information and analysis is for someone else to prepare.

The second is that we'll do that work next and there will be further updates as analysis is finished.

Bear in mind that this newser wasn't intended to release hard news about the revised death numbers.

Take a look at the official government news release.  As we've seen with the workers comp infosec leak, the news release is structured to bury hard information down the page. The news release wants to draw attention to the $2.3 million being spent to create organizations and policies that were - obviously - seriously flawed or previously didn't exist.

Watch Wiseman when he gets the question about patients.  He speaks about the impact on families and the desire to make sure that no one else goes through this kind of thing.

That it never happens again.

The standard Williams administration response once a problem is exposed.

You'd never know that Wiseman and his predecessors have been involved in this entire process since it was first discovered internally, let alone since it became public.

That's the conflict of interest that sits behind this newser and every other comment Wiseman makes about breast cancer screening. The Cameron Inquiry will be examining what Wiseman and his predecessors did in this matter.  He's being very careful about what he says publicly since he will likely have to deal with questions under oath at some point.  he's also likely to be deposed in the class action lawsuit that sits out there.

He's working to polish the public perception of him and the administration in advance of the legal work to come.  It's a nice - if a bit obvious - bit of litigation public relations.

And that Mr. Thompson they keep referring to in the scrum?  He's part of the issues management campaign as well.  The former top civil servant was sent in last May to run the health department and  - at the same time - to serve as secretary to cabinet for health issues management.

It's in that job - issues management related to Cameron and the breast cancer law suit - that led to the numbers released today.  Government is trying to figure out the extent of their liability.  And to some extent or other they are managing the flow of public information to put themselves in the best possible light.

Government has been kicked around a bit and they've started to counteract that.  There are new faces at Eastern Health, an old face returned from Environment and Conservation and a reportedly closer relationship between the top levels of government and Eastern Health's comms branch.  They've started to talk out radio interviews with sweet talk, for example, or inject the concern and compassionate face you saw Wiseman offering.  They want you to see Wiseman the fixer rather than the guy who bumbled his way through the announcement of the Cameron Inquiry by sticking Fred Kasirye out there as a sacrificial offering.

And it's that history of bumbling that makes you wonder:  has actually taken on outside counsel  - litigation or crisis PR experts - to help with the damage control.

You see, they might be doing this stuff on their own, but government's never shown an ability to polish a knob with quite this degree of subtlety.  They've usually resorted to shooting off a toe or two.

-srbp-

The Persuasion Business: What the heck is public relations?

In 1999, I headed up the public affairs section of the Department of National Defence task force in Newfoundland and Labrador that would co-ordinate any military assistance to the provincial government in the event of problems caused by the supposed Y2K flaw in some computer programs.

We planned and trained nationally, regionally and finally at the provincial level. The provincial exercise took place on a weekend in the fall of 1999. All key staff members spent the weekend running an operations centre exactly as we would if needed.

The daily routine began with the commander's daily briefing, usually at seven o'clock in the morning. All department heads gave a summary of the previous day's activities, forecast what was coming and highlighted any issues that might need the commander's personal attention.

After each such briefing, known informally as morning prayers, the department heads usually grabbed a quick breakfast before beginning their shift. That first morning, a couple of my colleagues separately took me to one side to ask a simple question: "Is that what you do?"

"Yes", I replied, at first not quite sure what was coming next. I had given the commander an overview of attitudes in the key audiences we would be dealing with: the federal and provincial governments, views of key politicians at both levels of government, the news media and specific reporters, the public in affected areas, and internally among soldiers. Only after ensuring The Boss was thoroughly familiar with the situation did I give him what literally amounted to a 30 second discussion of my section's planned activities.

He didn't need more. In all the years I had worked for this individual, he had only wanted to focus on issues that might require his attention; he trusted the staff he had picked to run the show. The Boss wanted the lay of the land and any key ideas he'd need to put across. He wanted to have a good feel for specific people he would be dealing with. Everything else was ours to handle as department heads in co-operation with each other and with decision makers inside and outside our organization.

My whole briefing had taken only about 10 minutes.

As I looked at my colleagues, I slowly started to understand their question and their expressions of discovery. One of them, a professional with considerable experience throughout the Canadian Forces and the department including tours overseas on major operations, said he had never seen a briefing like it before from a public affairs officer.

He was used to public affairs (public relations) being all about dealing with news media. There were a certain number of media calls. We handled this many interviews. There is a news conference at such and such a time. The other stuff - the analysis - was a revelation to him.

His revelation was less a revelation to me as a reminder.

Most people don't understand what public relations is all about.

They think it is just about dealing with news media. They think of it as publicity. They think it is part of marketing.

It is all of that, on some level, but it is really so much more.

Public relations is the management function that plans, co-ordinates and executes communications efforts with people who are interested in what an organization is doing, in order to gain and maintain their support for the organization.

That's a definition I work with but there are others.

The Canadian Public Relations Society defines public relations as "the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or organization with the public interest, and plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."

A lengthier definition holds that public relations "is the distinctive management function which:

• helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication understanding, acceptance and co-operation between an organization and its publics;
• involves the management of problems and issues;
• defines and emphasizes the responsibility of management to serve the public interest;
• helps management to keep abreast of and to serve the public interest effectively, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and,
• uses research and sound, ethical communications as its practical tools."

Take either definition and you have a good idea of what a public relations professional does.

One of the most important common features of each of those definition is the word "management".

With only a small amount of preparation, anybody can handle media telephone inquiries. In many organizations, including public relations departments in any company or government office, the business of talking a telephone call, arranging an interview, sending out information or even issuing a news release or holding a press conference can be handled by the literally thousands of competent administrative people. Heck, software programs these days come with template "press" releases and there's even a for dummies book on public relations.

The real challenging in public relations is managing. It is about planning, co-ordinating, leading, organizing and budgeting. It is about deciding and making the right decision inevitably takes training coupled with experience and judgement. Not everyone can do that.

One could say that a public relations practitioner helps decide who says what to whom, where, when, why and how.

If you take a closer look at those definitions a few simple ideas leap out.

First, communication is a two-way street. It involves sending a message and receiving one. The sending bit is perhaps the easiest of all. Most people figure that part out just by the action involved in sending out a news release.

But receiving? There is always feedback from people interested in what an organization is doing. Sometimes that feedback is a clue to something elsewhere in the organization that needs fixing. Sometimes that feedback isn't what the senior managers don't want to hear, but it is very important that they do. That's where public relations comes in.

Second - and related to that feedback thing - public relations often involves change in some way. Sometimes an organization has to communicate about change, like closing a business. Sometimes, the change comes as feedback from disgruntled employees or voters.

Third, public relations connects an organization with the public interest. That isn't just the interest of the public as a politician or public servant might look at it. Sometimes it is public interest in the sense of the greater good, but public interest may mean the benefit of a particular group.

Think about a health care administration. Its core business is providing health care needed by the people within its geographical area. Their interest - as a public - is getting the care they need when they need it. Seems obvious, right? Well, what happens when that care isn't what they want or need or, in some instances, what can actually be delivered within the budget provided by a public system?

Interests may clash, but the effective management of communication is supposed to help resolve those sorts of conflicts. Public relations involves establishing and maintaining "mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and co-operation." That health administration needs to give people realistic information about its programs. its needs to know if its services are being received and when there might be a budget issue, people may need to understand why some programs are expanding while others, like say their local clinic, is having its hours cut or is being closed.

In a more concrete example, look at the recent controversy involving one health authority and breast cancer screening. Aside from the problem with faulty testing - bad enough as it is - cancer patients and their families were likely most concerned to know how big the problem was. Did it involve me or my wife or mother? The next most important thing to know was what was being done about it. How is the health authority dealing with the problem and doing what it is supposed to do: deliver the best possible care?

take it from a slightly different angle and you can see this idea of public relations as well. Those patients are ultimately responsible for their own care and they can't make proper decisions if they don't have all the information. They depend on the relationship they have not just with the health professionals but with the entire organization to help them deal with their illness. Holding back vital information erodes the relationship between the care givers and the people needing care.

On a wider level, though, what seemed like a small decision to deal with a handful of patients, ultimately affected a bunch of others. People who would never even think about breast cancer screening personally had to wonder what other tests for other diseases might be buggered up. Then comes the real acid for the relationship: what else haven't they been told.

Once the story hit news media, the problem became not just in the relationship between the health authority and its patients (and their lawyers), it became a gigantic problem in the relationship between those patients, as voters, and the politicians who run the whole government. Patients discovered that three successive health ministers had been briefed on the whole thing - including withholding some information the non-disclosure apparently - and did...nothing.

In the whole business of dealing with the damage, another entirely separate issue was dragged in. At a news conference to announce an inquiry into the entire breast cancer business, someone decided to do two things. First he or she decided to delay the news conference. Reporters coming together at lunch hour for one announcement were left cooling their heels for no obvious reason.

Second, that same person decided to stick the head of the local health authority in front of a microphone to announce that a radiologist had been suspended because of possible problems with his diagnostic ability. Remember the bit about other tests? Initial reports noted that radiology involves mammograms. As anyone over the age of 18 likely knows, are tests to screen for, you guessed it, breast cancer. Imagine the reaction.

Even though this radiologist had not performed mammograms - information correctly reported in subsequent days - the decision to announce this separate issue in the way it was announced linked one crisis directly to another issue and thereby magnified the whole thing to another level.

Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow, indeed. Sometimes they fall on your head. Sometimes people wind up standing under a gigantic tree as it crashes from cuts they made to it.

Lots of information was handed out in this case, both initially and subsequently, but some crucial information - crucial as the patients saw it - was held back. The decision to hold that information back was taken by the senior-most levels of health care management and may have been done for what they took to be good corporate reasons. The communications people may well have advised a wider disclosure but as subsequent reports said, the information was held back based on legal advice.

Now in due course, we'll talk about the lawyer-public relations challenge, but think about that whole issue from a pure public relations perspective and you'll see the importance of effective public relations management. If you want people to support you, they have to know what you are doing. If you don't tell them, they can't know and, almost inevitably, they won't be overly supportive of what you are trying to do.

Get caught holding back or being thought of as holding back and support crumbles. Confidence erodes and, as the case turned out, the bosses of the bosses who held decided to hold back the information get more than a little annoyed or - when they join in the bad decisions - get caught up in a maelstrom of public concern.

No one likes unhappy people - disgruntled publics - especially politicians. As the case of breast cancer screening shows, badly handled public relations decisions - not necessarily made with the advice of public relations practitioners, by the way - can make a bad situation much worse. in fact, take a look at what happened compared to say the CPRS definition of public relations. How many of those key ideas got trashed?

When you get right down to it, public relations is essentially about relationships. So, against that background, next time we'll look at some simple ideas that underpin effective relationships, I mean, effective public relations:

Reputation and credibility.

- srbp -

The “Significant Impact” of Open Line #nlpoli

Cleaning out the home office has turned up a few forgotten gems.

One of them related to the political impact of open line shows in the province.  Last week,  your humble e-scribbler moderated a lunch-time talk by Professor Alex Marland and Randy Simms on just that topic.  The pile of papers included a Canadian Press story that appeared some time in early May, 2008. 

Headlined “Williams lashes out against accusations of tight message control”,  the story was Danny Williams’; reactions to comments during the Cameron Inquiry by John Abbott, the former deputy minister of health and community services.

Newfoundland [sic] Premier Danny Williams says a former public servant made "offensive and stupid" remarks when he told a public inquiry that radio call-in shows influenced the government's handling of an emerging scandal involving flawed breast-cancer testing.

Jet Ski or Scuba Dive?

There is a radical difference in media coverage of the premier's tesitmony at the cameron Inquiry.

For the most part, the local media were caught up in the presentation, even to the point of Randy Simms gushing - there is no other word for it - over what Simms said was an apology done without benefit of highly paid consultants to craft words. 

Simms seems to base his view entirely on the fact Williams did not read from a sheet of paper.  For a veteran newsman, Simms displays an ability to come to a conclusion based on incredibly slim facts.  Neil Armstrong didn't read from a sheet of paper either, but his first words on the moon were as rehearsed as could be.

The locals may have brushed beyond the nose-pullers in the testimony like the Premier's claim that he doesn't pay attention to what is said on radio talk shows.  The Telegram added a piece in the Wednesday edition on the Premier's comments on the media but didn't poke a hole in the silliness of some of the claims. 

Instead, they snickered over the poke at the Globe and Mail and ignored the Premier's other Palinesque claim that he often used The Independent for his "own research".  Recall that he has said a number of times that he does not have time to read books.  He just reads lots of - unspecified - other things.

Check the transcript indicentally and see the number of times a guy supposedly too uber-busy to even make notes on things so important he might want to follow up about later on can conduct his "own research" into issues.

The local coverage stuck pretty much to the gainsburgers:

CBC:

Premier Danny Williams apologized Tuesday for any grief and anguish that Newfoundland and Labrador breast cancer patients have suffered because of flawed laboratory tests. 

"We take this personally," Williams told the Cameron inquiry Tuesday. "We certainly take responsibility, full responsibility, for any actions ... that might have contributed to this problem."

Voice of the Cabinet Minister:

The Executive Director of the Canadian Cancer Society says he believes most people will accept Premier Danny Williams' apology, made at the Cameron Inquiry yesterday. Williams apologized on behalf of government to all who were impacted by the faulty breast cancer hormone receptor testing results. The Cancer Society's Peter Dawe says the words of remorse from the Premier seemed sincere.

The Telegram:  

“ I think it’s right I do so,” began Williams, launching into a seven-minute statement.


“I want to apologize to the patients and to their loved ones and their families for what has happened here. I apologize as the current premier and I apologize on behalf of previous governments and premiers … that if we’ve hurt these people, in some way they’ve suffered, that I can certainly assure them it was not deliberate.”

Williams said there was no intention to harm anybody “under any circumstances.”

A little distance from the subject matter  - however - gives an entirely different perspective, one that is sure to cause some controversy. 

The Globe editorial points to some issues that should serve as the basis for deeper inquiry or cause greater concern than they evidently have within the first 24 hours of post-testimony coverage. There are other aspects of the testimony which should cause news editors to send reporters digging for more details.

The bigger story lies in those details.

It's amazing what you can see when you look.

Or to borrow another metaphor, it's amazing what you find when you scuba dive, as opposed to jet ski.

Let's see if anyone bothers to don the tanks.

-srbp-

and on the third day, the Premier had no control of anything...

Wednesday turned out to be a day of bizarre contradictions.

Consider, for example, that on Monday the Premier insisted he took full responsibility for what was done or not done by anyone involved in the breast cancer debacle. He spoke consistent with principles of modern, public sector administration.

By Wednesday, as questions swirled around why a briefing note prepared for him was not sent to the minister at the time, he had a different view of control and responsibility:

So, you know I cannot attribute any blame. I cannot pass my own personal opinion on it. What we have seen is we have seen instances where Eastern Health had omitted and deleted information from briefing notes that were being released under ATTIP requests, and that was done. They have gone off - they have actually had press conferences where, in fact, all of the information was not revealed. Those are actions that are beyond the control of the minister. The minister cannot be responsible for every single person all the way down the line in the health care system because they have no possible, tangible means of doing it.

"Those are actions that are beyond the control of the minister. "  How odd. 

The Premier makes this comment after claiming that officials of Eastern Health had edited documents being released under the province's access to information laws. This is certainly news on the order of the allegations of forged documents that led to the Somalia Inquiry.  It's a curious parallel for the Premier to draw, even implicitly, since Somalia was a tale, in part, of great intrigue including the destruction of documents and problems in presenting documents to an inquiry.

But even if this allegation about the production of false documents were true - and there doesn't appear to be any evidence thus far that it is - the subsequent part of the Premier's comment undermines any notion of ministerial responsibility and ministerial accountability which he laid claim to on Monday.

Legally, ministers are indeed responsible for the actions of the department and the people within the department.  They are accountable to the public through the legislature for those actions.  They have tangible means of directing action and of monitoring activities within the department.  Departments are organized specifically to provide direction and control from the minister through to the front line workers of a given agency.

If there is no "possible, tangible means of doing it", i.e. of being responsible, then the department cannot function and government would grind to a halt.  think about it for a minute.  If a minister cannot direct action within a department there is no need for the legislature to pass laws directing a program to be implemented.  If a problem is detected, as in the breast cancer case, then it will be impossible to ensure it never happens again nor is it possible to produce the "best system in the country."  An absence of control and accountability - the essence of the Premier's comment - makes it impossible for government to function.

A minister cannot micro-manage, of course, if that is what the Premier meant.  It is impossible for anyone to direct the specific, detailed actions of every person in any organization, irrespective of its size.  Only fools try to do it and those fools that do usually create a dysfunctional organization full of unpleasant, unhappy and unhealthy people in the process.

The Premier's contention is, on the face of it, sheer nonsense.  Ministers can and do control their departments in a variety of ways. One of them is through the simple issuing of direction on what will be done in a given instance or, when something is not done, to have it sorted out and done to the satisfaction of the minister.

One of the enduring unanswered questions in the breast cancer debacle thus far relates to this simple notion.  Once ministers - including the Premier - became aware of certain issues, such as a failure by Eastern Health to disclose information, they failed to direct other action instead.  For example, if the Premier was aware - as he clearly was - that Eastern Health was no disclosing certain information - he failed to issue instructions to correct the situation. 

That is, by his own account he failed to exercise his legal responsibilities as first minister to direct the actions of government officials or those of Crown agencies.

With regard to the minister’s comment on, if he had it, he would have gone public. Well, I do not know what he had or what he did not have. He did not have that briefing note. The following month there was a press conference whereby Eastern Health disclosed information, even though they did not disclose all of it, and I have no control over that, that was in the public domain. Why the minister at that point did not decide to come to me or go public with it, he is the only one who can answer that. [Emphasis added]

Contrast that with the Premier's words and actions as the House of Assembly scandal broke in June 2006.  He took action.  He issued instructions.  He took credit for bringing the Auditor General into the House of Assembly. He had no executive authority to do so - the House is not a government department -  but he claimed credit for it anyway.

Yet, on a far more serious matter in a department over which he, as first minister had executive control through cabinet and successive ministers, the Premier had "no control over that." One wonders why, if that were the case, he would request a briefing note on a matter over which he had no control. Idle curiosity?  Why would he have bothered to give up the life of a successful lawyer to take on a job where he had no control over anything of substance? How is it that he can be consumed with trivialities enough to threaten legal action against your humble e-scribbler for some still incomprehensible reason and yet he cannot control the actions of government officials nor recall whether or not he received briefings on key issues?

The answer to these questions is, of course, that the Premier's comments in the House today are sheer nonsense.

Some of his other comments though may not be nonsense and, if true, raise far more significant implications for the conduct of government business.  A 1998 description of the executive functioning of the provincial government describes a typical relationship of the Premier and his two chief advisors, his political chief of staff and the Clerk of the Executive Council.

A close working relationship involving the Office of the Premier, Cabinet Secretariat and the other secretariats within the Office of the Executive Council is essential. The Premier meets daily with both his Chief of Staff and the Clerk of the Executive Council. The Premier’s Chief of Staff and the Clerk of the Executive Council work in close collaboration, keeping the other apprised of political, policy, communications and administrative considerations.

At the head of the Office of the Executive Council (other than the Office of the Premier) is the Clerk of the Executive Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. This position encompasses three related roles. As Deputy Minister to the Premier, the Clerk is the senior official reporting to the Premier on all governmental matters. The Clerk receives and transmits instructions from the Premier, and, as the senior official in the Office of the Executive Council, the Clerk coordinates the operation of the secretariats.

The Clerk assists the Premier in setting the Cabinet agenda, arranges meetings of Cabinet, oversees the preparation of briefing materials for the Premier, ensures the records of Cabinet are properly maintained and, under the Premier’s guidance, plans Cabinet retreats. The Clerk is also responsible for process in the conduct of Cabinet business and, from time to time, works with Ministers and senior officials on substantive matters on Cabinet’s agenda.

It would not be unusual for the Clerk of the Executive Council to meet with the premier daily on a variety of issues.  The Clerk is after all, the deputy minister to the Premier and typically reports to the Premier on all matters of government especially those involving the administration of government.

With that as background, consider the following comment by the Premier in response to a question about whether the Clerk of the Council had mentioned to him the serious problem at Eastern Health when the Clerk became aware of it in July 2005:

Mr. Speaker, I cannot recall a conversation with Mr. Thompson on that particular issue. Mr. Thompson would brief me, not on a daily basis. It was sometimes on an extended basis, sometimes it could be as long as a month when we sat down for briefings. Mr. Thompson and his staff, I have not made a direct question to Mr. Thompson as to whether I did have it, but it has been requested as to whether there were any conversations with Mr. Thompson, and to my knowledge there were none.

A month between briefings from his own deputy minister? Those familiar with the operations of government would find such a statement leads to only a handful of conclusions none of which are good either for the province or the Premier.

The most obvious conclusion is that he is suffering from pinocchiosis but it would be rash to assume this. He may well be stating his own view of the job and of the reality of how this administration functions or dysfunctions. The Premier may well not bother himself with many of demands of his job, leaving responsibility to his unelected staff and to such cabinet ministers as Tom Rideout.

Of course, that is not the picture which has been described to date nor is it the basis on which he has received such overwhelming popular support. That's one of the political landmines Danny Williams faces:  the Cameron Inquiry may reveal much of how his administration has actually functioned.

If he continues to claim he has no control of anything and attempts to shift responsibility for action and inaction onto other people, the public may well start to wonder why they elected him and his associates in the first place.

No wonder cabinet is trying desperately to find an excuse to stop questions in the House of Assembly on the breast cancer debacle. 

-srbp-

Contrasts

There is the series on NTV’s evening news this week featuring Yvonne Jones. The Liberal Party leader is fighting breast cancer. She allowed NTV to follow her through part of that experience.

This is not something most of us would do, under any circumstances.  Jones did, however,  and in the act of openness has given people a chance to see an aspect of her that is quite different from the clips on the evening news or the sterile quote in the paper.

The segment on Wednesday night featured a group of women, some of them breast cancer survivors themselves.  They came to support Jones as she shaved her head before starting chemotherapy. Even if you did not know any of the women, you could not help but be moved to the brink of tears.

There was a prayer chain made up of sheets of paper containing messages for Yvonne.

Jones held up a blanket knit by a group of women at a church and told about it and where it came from.

There was a picture of her cheerleaders.

Here was a woman taking the first step along a very difficult journey.  Difficult is not even the right word for it.  Truth be told, unless you have faced such a thing as cancer, it’s hard to know what word is right.

Other words come to mind, though, from watching the segment. Red faces.  Cracking voices. Trepidation.  Hugs.  Prayers. Fear.  But at the same time compassion, optimism, and laughter that seemed to make all those other things  - if not disappear  - then seem not quite so enormous.

An experience that can only be singularly personal transformed in all its dimensions through camaraderie.

Some people lead by saying: “Follow me!”

Others say: “let us go this way together.”

Life is full of contrasts.

- srbp -

And on the first day, he was highly agitated...

Premier Danny Williams didn't look very refreshed from his extended southern vacation when he faced questions in the House of Assembly.

In fact, he looked as pinched an angry as he usually does when he doesn't have absolute control over an issue.

Monday's Hansard is online and it makes fascinating reading.  Too bad there isn't video to go with it. overall, Danny Williams played two roles, that of defence lawyer to government and as witness.

He's done the defence lawyer thing before on other scandals and crises.  The big difference in this case is that he's also acting as his own lawyer for some of it.  you can tell those parts because they contain lots of explanations of how tough the job is, how many messages they get in the run of a day - this will be important in a second -  all the righteous indignation and the best rage he can muster.

That's the bit where he raised what is colloquial known as a red herring.  Others may know it as a non sequitur, an unrelated bit of stuff.  Ross Wiseman did it last week, likely on direction from the senior Crown counsel in Florida.  The counsel took up the line himself yesterday talking about an internal memo on the health labs that we know from the evidence presented thus far, never made it out of Eastern Health. 

The two are completely different, though.  Williams ties that earlier situation with his own situation where his office knew about the problems apparently before the minister did.  The idea of such a tactic  - the non sequitur - is to muddy the waters a bit, to raise reasonable doubt where there may not be reasonable doubt on the face of it. Defence lawyers are good at raising doubt and Williams gave it his best shot yesterday.

The lawyer/premier portion of the pre-inquiry testimony also included the now-standard "Get Out of jail Free" card:  Danny Williams will take personal responsibility for anything done or undone, except for illegal acts.  In other words, your job is safe.  Don't worry about the public criticism of your actions or anything else, for that matter,  you will have a job.  He used it when Tom Rideout was revealed to have been renting a house in Lewisporte contrary to House spending rules at the time.  It reminds people, though, that the ethical benchmark for the Williams administration is far as far can be from what they thought they were voting for in 2003.

In other places, Williams is giving evidence, as a witness.  It's sort of like pre-discovery since Williams is speaking on the public record but before he testifies for real, under oath before the Cameron Inquiry.  That's the part where Williams' memory of a very significant event fails utterly.

It's a problem that seems evident already with John Ottenheimer. 

"I cannot remember...".  I have no recollection.

That doesn't mean it didn't happen, he reassures;  it only means he can't recall.

And that's where the busy-ness of the office comes in.  In the sequence, it came after the failed memory, but the purpose is obvious:  it sets up the explanation for the failed memory in a fashion which is plausible even if some are already dismissing it as improbable.

It is context, to be sure and potentially relevant context, but it is a form of defence that is bound to come back again and again right up until the time the Premier responds to the subpoena he'll almost surely receive to give evidence at the inquiry.

It also reduces serious government business to the same status as other less serious stuff.  Likening the first word of the breast cancer thing to remembering on what specific day he attended the swearing-in of a back bench MHA is an example of that. Clayton Forsey - the guy who got mentioned likely because he won Roger Grimes' old seat - is not a routine thing but compared to the scandal, we pretty much all are.

There's plausible denial and plausible explanation and reasonable doubt.

Then there's beggaring credulity, let alone the imagination.

For those who do not know, your humble e-scribbler worked for seven years in the Premier's Office.  It is a busy place. The pressure can be intense at times. But the huge volume of information flowing through the office and the busy nature of the place is why the Premier has a staff.  Not just two or three people but a dozen or more, depending on the administration. There are others in the government offices, especially in the Executive Council, who are busy too but whose job is, in part, to assist the Premier in discharging his responsibilities.

Their job is to filter information and any competent Premier relies on a competent staff, a staff that can tell the difference between the request for a birthday message for Aunt Minnie who just turned 100 years of age or a congrats letter for the local basketball team from  word that as many as 1500 people may be affected by something going on in the local health authority.  The first two wouldn't cross the premier's desk, typically. 

The last one?  It would cross his desk, flash on his e-mail screen, come through the telephone, or be subject to a verbal briefing from the senior staff - chief of staff and director of communications - if not all three.  Given the evidence presented thus far at the Cameron Inquiry, the Eastern Health issue was certainly at that level of concern.  Otherwise, it wouldn't have been flashed to the most senior bureaucrat in the government and, around the same time, to the two most senior officials in the Premier's Office.  People passing that information - senior and with Queen's Park experience, like say Carolyn Chaplin  - would expect that the information was passed to The Boss without undue delay.

Those e-mails, entered already as evidence, are warnings of a significant issue.  They are both understandable and evidence of people who know their jobs well.

A subsequent e-mail from Chaplin warned that the issue was now not as urgent as earlier understood. It is most emphatically not - and let us be absolutely clear on this -  a direction to stand down.  The afternoon e-mail from Chaplin is not an Emily Litella admonition to "never mind".

To be clear on the point, let's quote two e-mails in their entirety.  First, there is one from the assistant secretary to cabinet for social policy to the Clerk of the Executive Council:

»> Gary Cake 7/19/2005 10:32 AM »>
Robert!
Carolyn Chaplin just called from RCS to provide a heads up that a major story will break from the Eastern Health Board as early as this Thursday! but more likely next Monday.

The Eastern Health Board has recently discovered errors in its breast cancer testing program. This matter affects clients who were subject to breast cancer testing from 1997 to April! 2004. I understand that an estimated 1200 to 1500 clients will need to be retested. The Eastern Health Board is currently working on a strategy for communicating this news to affected clients and the public at large. Legal advice is being engaged in this process.

HCS will be advised of the communications strategy.

briefing note is currently being prepared.

Carolyn has also alerted Elizabeth to this matter.

The first sentence conveys the urgency of the issue:  this is significant and may become public a mere two days hence.  19 July was a Tuesday.  He then describes the issue, concisely, as it was then understood. He also discusses the standard responses:  drafting of a communications strategy, engagement of legal counsel and preparation of a briefing note for the minister and presumably the whole cabinet including the Premier.  The last sentence advises that the Premier's communications director was also aware.

Now, let's look at Chaplin's e-mail about four hours later:

From: Chaplin, Carolyn
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 2:37 PM
To: Cake, Gary
Cc: Abbott, John G. [deputy health minister]
Subject: Re: Update - Eastern Health Matter

Further to this morning and incoming information this afternoon, no action is required at
this time. We have arranged a briefing with the health authority for the latter part of
this week and will be in a better position to forward relevant briefing materials at that
time. No public announcement will be forthcoming this week and there is a possibility that
the significance of any announcement will be minimized.

Carolyn Chaplin
Director of Communications
Health and Community Services

The first sentence advises that no action is required, but only "at this time."  It then describes, generally, the reason for the reduced urgency.  Not eliminated urgency - as in "stand down" - but reduced urgency:  "No public announcement will be forthcoming this week...", but more information will follow.

In other words, things are not going to happen on Thursday.  Instead, action has been delayed pending a briefing from the health authority at which time the department would be better able to advise higher authorities of the issue and possible actions.

Take a look at the actual words and you see something dramatically different from the way the Premier has characterised it and the way other officials have described it.

Danny Williams' performance in the House of Assembly yesterday was of the type we've come to expect of him when he's under pressure:  excited, full of threats and admonitions of caution. He played many roles, consistent with the varied roles he has in this matter.  He covered many bases, some of them quite well.

The political problem for Williams is that for the first time in his administration, he cannot control the flow of information and the interpretation of events. That is the major political problem he faces.  If he is as agitated on the first day, it will be fascinating to see if he can sustain that intensity and if his version of events stands up to scrutiny.

That will determine the future of his tenure as Premier.

-srbp-

Breast cancer inquiry opens

The Cameron Inquiry into breast cancer testing at Eastern Health started public hearings today, after a weather delay on Tuesday.

Hearings are being webcast (check the link above, under "Schedule and Witnesses").

The commission is interpreting its terms of reference to focus almost exclusively on the medical aspects of the issue. That's particularly interesting when it comes to Term (f):

Term (f) directs that recommendations be made as to how matters of this nature should be handled.  Though not exclusively, Part II will be largely directed to providing information to the Commission which would assist in making such recommendations.  To that end, six experts have been engaged to prepare papers. The papers, which are directed to aspects of the obligation to disclose, will be posted on the website in March, 2008.

That term relates to making recommendations for policy on any implications flowing from the other terms.

There isn't anything obvious from the schedule of witnesses released thus far or from the experts engaged for the second phase of the inquiry that would deal with Term (d):

(d) inquire into whether, once detected, the responsible authorities communicated in an appropriate and timely manner with the general public and internally within the health system about the issues and circumstances surrounding the change in test results and the new testing procedures;

That's the term which appeared, on first reading, to include Eastern Health's public relations operations. Apparently it doesn't. Most of the disclosure discussion planned for phase two examines only the legal and medical aspects of the question.

No paper appears to have been commissioned from him but the commission will hear from a journalism professor at the University of British Columbia on the role of the media in disclosure. That's interesting since the public relations function - identified in Term (d) - only becomes an issue of media ethics once a management decision has been taken on whether to disclose, how to disclose and what to disclose.

It will be hard to determine if the responsible authorities communicated in an appropriate and timely manner if no one providing evidence or opinion to the commission has experience in the the management of communications.

-srbp-

At the end of the day

...it is very concerning that we do not understand the story, and that people are starting to talk to us, but at the end of the day...

Louise Jones needs some serious interview coaching.

Quickly.

One of the ways Eastern Health can help to restore public confidence in its operations is by speaking in plain English about things that are usually masked behind the cold impersonal language of health care bureaucrats.

Or, as in the examples used above, in the meaningless phrases people rely on when they really don't have anything of substance to say.

With some help, Jones could likely find those words that show she gets it.

But she needs help.

One of the other ways in which Eastern Health will restore public confidence is by demonstrating confidence and an understanding of the issues involved in breast cancer screening and what was done about it.

That didn't come out of Louise Jones' interview on Thursday with Jeff Gilhooley.

Rather, we heard a chief executive officer who had plenty of pat phrases on which to reply - at the end of the day - but nothing of substance to say.

The public will likely find it "concerning" that even two years after this issue first came to light, Eastern Health's senior management doesn't understand the simple maxim of disclosure when 300 to 500 patients are involved versus just one. 

It's the same maxim one that applies for the one:  "maximum disclosure with minimum delay".  It really doesn't matter that you don't have exact answers. It matters that you say something and keep talking as you learn new information.

And surprisingly, once there is some disclosure of what is known, people get remarkably good at understanding.  One of the things they can understand - as in the infamous Tylenol case from the early 1980s - is how to distinguish people genuinely affected by the incident from the people who aren't. Reporters learn how to do it and therefore other people do.

The examples of effective crisis management in situations with similar issues pop to mind:

Tylenol.

Toxic shock.

There are  - undoubtedly - a raft of others from the healthcare sector that come close enough to the breast cancer screening problem to serve as a guide to action.

Maximum disclosure with minimum delay.

Keep updating information as it comes in.

No one expects anyone to know everything, perfectly, right at the start.

But they do expect to see action and they do expect to know what's going on.

And "at the end of the day", "it is very concerning" that this aspect of "the story"is "till not understood"by the people who deliver "service" to "clients."

That's okay, though.  The Cameron Inquiry is a lengthy process that may help to drive some rather simple messages home with people who clearly still need to do some thinking about all this.

That's okay, because fundamentally the medium is the message, in this case.

The Cameron Inquiry is a process.

Treatment is a process.

Communication is a process, too.

-srbp-

Anger, personified

The raw scrum video, via cbc.ca/nl of the response by Premier Danny Williams to an ongoing story at Eastern Health.  There’s also the full cbc.ca/nl online story on the ongoing controversy.  If that doesn’t work, try another link here:   http://tiny.cc/TEJTJ.

CBC news obtained documents through the province’s access to information laws that shed more detail on the release of information in early April related to the ongoing breast cancer testing issue.

Officials  - especially communications vice-president Jennifer Guy - at Eastern health,  New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael, all on the receiving end of the Premier’s anger including an accusation of  political opportunism on the part of the NDP leader. 

This is radically different from anything ever fired at people like Stephen Harper.  There’s none of the characteristic hyperbole, for instance.  You can feel the anger coming clearly through the audio portion. Eastern health chief executive Louise Jones held a newser later in the day;  that isn’t available online yet.

Williams recently criticised the province’s access laws for bogging down government officials with “frivolous” requests and used that an excuse for failing to deliver whistleblower protection legislation in the first session after the 2007 general election as Williams promised.

In a scrum with reporters last Friday, Williams also claimed there was not much experience globally with whistleblower protection laws

He also accused an unnamed witness at the Cameron inquiry into the breast cancer scandal of being motivated at least in part by a personal vendetta. Williams said someone “came on pretty strongly” and decided “to have a crack at government after they did not get their own way’ on employment for a relative with government.

Political opportunism by opposition leaders is not an unusual phenomenon in Newfoundland in Labrador, by the way:

“We told them it was only print-sharing and that there was no threat but, regardless of that, they did take the action they did,” he said.

“What happened wasn’t a breach. Their staff, we believe, knew it wasn’t a breach.”

The action referred to there by a police officer was a public accusation a Liberal political staffer had attempted to hack into the opposition Progressive Conservative computer system.

The story broke in early February 2002:

"The premier's office knew right away that this had happened and, in my opinion, they've acknowledged that a political staffer has interfered with our (computer) system," Conservative Leader Danny Williams said Friday.

"That's very serious stuff."

The language from then opposition leader Williams was strong and, as it seems people in his office knew at the time their version of the story was nothing that would warrant the over-the-top language their boss used:

"Here we have a political staffer trying to break into our computers," Mr. Williams added. "It's very disconcerting to us. There's strategic information in our offices."  [“Liberal tried to hack our computers, Tories say: Newfoundland probe”, National Post Richard Foot, Saturday, February 9, 2002]

or from a Telegram story headlined “Tories sweep offices for bugs”:

"An attempt at access is just as serious as access - no different than attempted robbery is as serious as robbery itself," said Williams, who is a lawyer.

"From our perspective, we're treating it as a very, very serious matter."

 

-srbp-

Breast cancer patient receives notice of re-test...this week

All patients have been notified.

Well, maybe not all.

And there was never a need to set up a toll free line for patients to check, just in case the regional health authority records were inaccurate.

Liberal leader Yvonne Jones raised the issue in the legislature on Thursday. Her office issued a news release, as well:

"I was very surprised when I learned that this individual from the west coast was contacted for the first time yesterday," said Ms. Jones. "She has been living a healthy lifestyle for the past several years and had no previous indication that her testing results may have been faulty. I have to question whether any other breast cancer patients affected by the faulty hormone receptor testing have yet to be contacted?"

Eastern Health is reportedly checking into the matter.

-srbp-

Sign of the future?

The opposition leader makes a splash with a simple call for earlier breast cancer screening for women.

The cabinet minister issues a long-winded news release reciting all the stuff his department is doing about breast cancer.

And it predictably finishes with a recitation of how much money the current administration has spent.

Which one was more effective?

- srbp -

Revisiting the Gorge of Eternal Peril

An e-mail from a seasoned political observer prompted a second look at a post original made at Persuasion Business in the summer of 2007.

The e-mail exchange centred on the political implications of sudden discoveries of e-mails previously not thought to exist or of the question of what the Premier knew of the Eastern Health crisis and when he knew it. The notion of credibility came quickly to mind since it is a core concept in public relations and it is certainly a core concept in the entire Eastern Health debacle.

The whole idea is the focus of a post titled "The Gorge of Eternal Peril."

One of the examples cited is a pair of comments made on George Tilley's resignation.  In hindsight, it is remarkable to see how consist Eastern Health and the health ministry have been in trying puffery and palaver when simple straightforward statements would do.  Tilley's replacement taxed the ears of her audience on Thursday with her endless talk of stories being told at the end of the day.

In the court of public opinion (repost from The Persuasion Business)

These originally appeared in two parts on July 23 and July 24, 2007 at The Persuasion Business.

Part One

You don't have to be Conrad Black or Brian Mulroney to find yourself facing a legal battle and at the same time face a battle over your reputation in the court of public opinion.

Cases involving large companies, alleged injuries to members of the public, alleged wrongdoing by politicians or other prominent people usually attract news media attention. It's true in Chicago with Conrad Black and Los Angeles with OJ, Paris Hilton or the latest flavour of the moment.

Yet, it is equally true even in a relatively small place like Newfoundland and Labrador. Max Ruelokke, currently the head of the offshore regulatory board, found himself speaking with reporters on a legal action to resolve a dispute over his appointment to the job he currently holds. Ruelokke, a senior executive in the private sector and former public servant likely never expected to find himself at the centre of a political controversy but that's where he wound up.

These days, though, any case is liable to make the news. Even in appeals courts, cases that would normally draw yawns have earned news coverage either because there was something peculiar about the subject matter - a bizarre constitutional challenge on a fisheries violation, for example - or because one of the lawyers was particularly colourful in his arguments before the court.

Parties involved in a court proceeding - especially one that is likely to make news - must deal with the court of public opinion just as they deal with legal aspects of whatever matter they may face in a court of law. Reputations are at stake and as several high-profile cases - like Mulroney and Airbus - a successful co-ordination of public relations strategy with legal strategy can have a profound influence on the outcome.

It's not just a matter of having a lawyer make comments to a reporter. Most lawyers, even the ones who make a habit of granting interviews, run on whatever innate abilities they have. But being knowledgeable in the law and persuasive in a courtroom or in a boardroom doesn't necessarily guarantee success in the other, less formal and often more combative court. The rules are different. That's where counsel comes in. Just as no one with half a clue would walk into court without a lawyer, no one - including lawyers - should wander into the court of public opinion without experienced counsel.

Part Two

There are at least five reasons to deal with reporters and, in the process, co-ordinate action in both the court of law and the court of public opinion.

It's called litigation public relations.

1. Preserve the presumption of innocence.

This may be the cornerstone of our legal system, but often the first allegation made in public is the one that sticks.

Far too often people and organizations facing allegations will decline public comment. Just as silence is consent, silence in the news media usually implies agreement with whatever is being said about you.

Consider any of the high-profile cases currently taking place in Newfoundland and Labrador. Current and former members of the House of Assembly face allegations about improper spending of public funds. Charges have been laid against one - and he continues to decline comment of any kind - but all are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

Ask anyone about the case and see how many are willing to maintain the presumption of innocence after the onslaught of allegations from the Auditor General. In a court of law, allegations are subject to scrutiny and cross-examination. Weaknesses in an argument, faulty work, or in some instances a lack of credible evidence may win an acquittal.

Eventually.

In the meantime, those allegations are all that are available publicly. And every time there's another news story, the allegations get repeated sometimes without direct refutation.

For example, take the case of the former director of finance in the legislature who faces a civil action brought against him by the provincial government to recover money he is only - at this point - alleged to have inappropriately obtained or which he is alleged to have approved for others. His lawyer filed a statement of defence to the claim, until now the only comment of any substance made on his behalf and it is 13 months after the first allegations were made.

The CBC coverage of the filing is accurate and apparently thorough. But look at the amount of space devoted to the allegations in a story on the statement of defence.
The same could be said of a radiologist in Burin accused - merely accused - of misreading radiology reports. Find someone who hasn't heard of the case. Find someone who doesn't believe the guy is guilty of screwing up more than 6,000 reports.

Silence implies guilt.

2. Provide accurate, factual information about the case from the client's perspective, or as may be the case, correct inaccurate information.

The basis of solid legal argument and solid public relations argument is fact. Nothing persuades better than a consistent, logical and simple series of factual propositions or statements.

It isn't spin. Spin is misrepresentation, which is a slightly more polite word for a falsehood. Spin erodes credibility which undermines reputation which rots relationships.

In all cases, but especially when the allegations are emotionally charged, it may be important to defuse emotionalism with facts.

Sometimes allegations may involve inaccurate information or a news report may include inaccurate information from any source, including third parties.

The inaccuracy may come from a comment or it may result from the context, like the example of a health authority announcing the suspension of a radiologist immediately before an announcement of a public inquiry into breast cancer screening problems.

If the subject is complex or the issues involved are arcane or intricate - like how claims were processed and who approved them - important details will be omitted or simply misunderstood.

3. Provide reporters with background information not necessarily related to the case so that reporters may understand the legal proceedings.

Reporters are usually bright people but even reporters who have covered legal issues for years before may be unaware of important aspects of the process.

A key part of any public relations job is translating complex issues into accurate but understandable language. Legal cases are no different than engineering or mathematics. Keeping the level of comprehension high fights against inaccuracy and the resulting wrong impressions.

Lawyers and others may often need to provide background information to ensure reporters get the story right.

A few years ago, I dealt with reporters covering a high-profile set of charges. My client was not directly involved.  Reporters were obviously having some difficulty understanding the circumstances under which bail is granted in Canada. The lawyer representing the accused didn't provide any information - simple background - and when I referred the reporters to the two Crown prosecutors on the case, both lawyers declined any comment.

Reporters were evidently frustrated and they were directing questions anywhere, including in my direction. As a result, I gathered some information, consulted a couple of solid sources and gave them a bit of background. Doing that helped direct questions away from my client - where attention shouldn't have been focused anyway - and also helped reporters understand the circumstances that likely influenced the judge's eventual decision to grant bail with some fairly stringent conditions.

The sad part of that episode was that both the Law Society guidelines and guidelines for federally-appointed courts on media coverage of court proceedings all encourage exactly that type of comment by lawyers even those directly involved in litigation.

4. Know what to say and when; know what not to say and when not to say it.

As important as it is to say something, it may also be advisable to hold back some information for the courts or even to avoid making some comments at all.

Ask Conrad Black's attorneys about that last bit when it comes time to sentence the former media baron.

More likely though, it may be generally inappropriate to lay out in detail every aspect of a defence or a prosecution, of an allegation or a response, in public before making the comments in court. That's something lawyers will know.

But consider the alternative: the need for disclosure in the court of public opinion.

In their book, Buck up and suck up, James Carville and Paul Begalla recount the initial stages of Whitewater. Bill and Hilary Clinton - being lawyers - instinctively approached the allegations like lawyers. They hired lawyers.

And the lawyers did what lawyers do: they said nothing, admitted nothing. They advised against saying anything. The lawyers acted in what they perceived as the clients' best interest based on what works in their world. However, as Carville and Begala point out, "stonewalling is the biggest, brightest red flag you can wave to a reporter."

Closer to home, consider the piece of information withheld from the public on breast cancer screening, apparently on the advice of lawyers. It's easy to trace and entire public inquiry to the furor created by just that one earnest and well-intentioned piece of advice based on experience in one court but used in the wrong one.

Openness breeds confidence. Stonewalling breeds something else.

5. Everyone follows the news and vice versa.

We'd be naive if we didn't understand that everyone watches television, listens to the radio and reads the newspapers or surfs the Internet.

Stories can't be contained any more by the fact they happen in a town with only a single daily newspaper, a couple of radio news outlets and a couple of television stations. For anyone doing business outside his or her own community, odds are that media coverage will reach. In addition to dealing with immediate legal problems, widespread media coverage may make it hard to carry on business elsewhere.

Equally, while it may have been possible once to pull stakes and move to another province or even another country to start again after a legal disaster, those days are gone. What will drag along behind is not just the legal disaster, but virtually every comment made - accurate or wildly speculative - and if the person or business happens to gain some prominence in the new local, old ghosts may return to haunt.

In the immediate world of a litigation though, we'd be equally naive to believe that judges and prospective jurors don't follow the news and we'd be just silly to think they also don't start forming some opinions based on what they hear initially. They are human.

Rather than vacate the field to whatever allegations are made, presenting factual, accurate comment in news media can influence a case. (Making wild and silly comments can produce the opposite, but that's another war story)

Consider the case of Max Ruelokke. Appointed to chair the offshore regulatory board by a process established by federal-provincial agreement (the 1985 Atlantic Accord), Ruelokke faced a situation in which the provincial government delayed issuing the order in council making the appointment official.

As it turned out, Ruelokke had to sue the provincial government to get the job he won on merit, but in the process, he faced public criticism from the Premier. Ruelokke didn't seek the limelight, but he never shied away from it either. He accepted interview requests and presented himself calmly and consistently. He was impressive, even as the whole process dragged on for months.

Would it have made a difference if he kept his mouth shut? Hard to say. Ruelokke had a strong case anyway, one the judge hearing the case described as a "slam-dunk" even before final summations.

Had Ruelokke lost his temper in the face of some of the comments made against him, he may well have damaged his case. By maintaining a cool demeanour and dealing simply with the facts, Ruelokke may well have helped confirm that he was simply a professional executive entitled to the job he had been awarded in a fair process.

Ruelokke's calm persistence in the face of the Premier's bluster may also have helped persuade the Premier to abandon his futile legal fight.

One sign of the impact Ruelokke had? After the case was settled, the Premier whined about Ruelokke being "in everyone's face" throughout the process, although Ruelokke had appeared in interviews on only a handful of occasions.

Ruelokke's response was characteristic of his overall performance:

"I have not gone seeking the attention of the media. I have not failed to respond, however, to media on my views on what's happened," he said.

That's the essence of litigation public relations.

- srbp -

Freedom from information: lack of briefing notes for minister called “bizarre” by senior government official

An unnamed senior public sector manager has termed a move by government to eliminate briefing notes for ministers “bizarre”.

The official is quoted in a post by Telegram blogger Geoff Meeker.  The unidentified official spoke only on condition of anonymity.

“I don't think it's possible to keep up to speed without a briefing book,” said the person, who has worked at some of the highest levels of the public service.

“It will make it very difficult to understand, in retrospect, why certain decisions were made - very dangerous for the staff who must execute them and very problematic if one needs to retrace and do a course-correction on something that's gone off the rails. Without briefing books, corporate memory is very much reduced and future government decisions rendered more difficult.”

The comment came after another Telegram story (not online) in which Joan Burke, government house leader and minister of a newly created child, youth and family services department, said that she had received no briefing notes when taking over her new portfolio. Burke told the Telegram’s Rob Antle that

“I didn’t want to be handed a binder with 500 to 1,000 sheets of paper to try to determine what’s important and what’s not, and what’s current and what I need on my radar.”

As Meeker points out, Burke’s attitude may have little to do with what she described as her desire to get down to work.

Burke was embroiled in a controversy last year over the hiring of a new president for Memorial University.  Details of the minister’s involvement became embarrassing when the Liberal opposition office obtained copies of government records through the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and provided them to local media.

The documents including e-mails and briefing notes that included questions for Burke to use during her screening interviews with the two finalists selected by the university’s hiring process.  Burke rejected both candidates.

Briefing notes have also proved embarrassing for other cabinet ministers.

A note prepared for Burke’s successor in November 2008 on financial implications of “autonomy” for Grenfell College from Memorial University, another controversial policy from Burke’s tenure in education, was virtually completed deleted before being released under the province’s open records laws.  While promised two years ago, there is still no sign of the enabling legislation.

During the Cameron inquiry into the hormone receptor scandal, health minister Ross Wiseman stated under oath that he had not read briefing notes on the issue when he took over the portfolio.  As CBC reported,

… Wiseman said he did not have the opportunity to read briefing notes about the cancer testing after he was sworn in as health minister, because he was busy tackling other pressing issues and preparing for the annual budget.

Opposition politicians have also claimed that ministers apparently no longer receive briefing notes to use in preparation for the House of Assembly.

Meeker’s public sector manager also described some of the concerns about the new policy which would see the elimination of any paper trail of documents and backgrounders for ministers. 

“Without briefing documents, the public can never really know what grounds decisions were made on - cutting the foundation out from under transparency and accountability, not to mention history - how will future generations understand the story of this government and this time without primary research sources?

“This puts a great burden on senior and mid-level public officials to keep good records in their own briefing books and black books. These would be accessible under ATIPP, but that leaves the paper trail with the officials, not the Minister. And if they don't keep good records, well - we all heard during the Cameron inquiry how difficult it is for these busy, busy people [cabinet ministers and political staff] to recall details from 6 or 12 months ago.”

That last point is particularly cogent:  at one point during the inquiry, an exasperated commissioner Justice Margaret Cameron commented that many of the witnesses seemed to have difficulty recalling anything at all. 

The premier's chief of staff, Brian Crawley, was sent an e-mail in July, 2005 that warned of a major story about to break involving breast cancer testing mistakes.

But Crawley testified he can't remember getting the e-mail or even talking to anyone in the premier's office — including the premier — about it.

"I really don't remember anything about those early days at all," he said.

Judge Margaret Cameron asked Crawley whether he remembered any of the events of July and he responded, "No."

"You don't remember seeing anything about this until the story broke in the Independent [Newfoundland & Labrador Independent newspaper] and you don't even really remember reading the Independent story," she said.

Crawley was not alone and that exchange prompted an angry premier Danny Williams to criticise Cameron over the remark, as cbc.ca/nl reported:

When Crawley answered one question about what he would have done in a situation, Cameron replied, "Well, I'm getting a lot of that, 'This is what I would've done,' but nobody ever remembers seemingly having done much."

On Friday, Williams fired back.

"I have to say I was disappointed. I was disappointed as I watched Madame Justice Cameron show disdain for a professional witness who was before her, giving testimony, honestly, forthright, under oath, to the best of his or her ability," Williams told reporters.

Meeker’s post and the comments by the unnamed official echo concerns identified in Donald Savoie’s recent book on the erosion of accountability at White hall and in Ottawa.

In Court government: the collapse of accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom, Savoie documents a similar practice of eliminating briefing notes and other official written documents in order to avoid the access to information laws.

In addition to the move to eliminate a paper trail, Savoie also notes concerns among politicians with whistleblower legislation as part of a larger trend away from government openness and internal and external accountability.

Savoie also points to the appearance of unofficial practices within the administration of government that are also designed to avoid disclosure under access to information laws.  For example, one study cited by Savoie found that requests from politicians and the media took longer to process than those from others even though there did not appear to be any particular difference in one request from another.   

Similar efforts by officials to skirt open records laws have already been noted in Newfoundland and Labrador.

For example, officials have invented a concept called non-responsive records to refer to documents which are apparently covered by an access request but which are not  released. One of the Burke e-mails on Memorial University, for example, includes a deletion marked “non-responsive” rather than use the official requirement to cite a specific section of the access law under which a deletion is made.

Perhaps the most notorious example was a claim that records did not exist even though the Premier and other officials acknowledged that they did.

In another case, access to documents was denied on the grounds that the review was ongoing.  The request had not been for a final report but for documents relating to the study and an accounting of its costs.

Officials have also been able to avoid disclosure based on questionable claims about the scope of the request.

-srbp-

Government promises accounting in cancer scandal

Premier Danny Williams said Thursday his administration had a "moral responsibility" to investigate whether patient health was compromised in the way a regional health authority in the province responded to news that certain breast cancer screening tests had produced incorrect results.

Upwards of 300 women were steered away from access to the drug Temoxafen, based on the results of faulty hormone receptor tests.

Former health minister Tom Osborne, now the province's justice minister, admitted he was briefed on the scope of the problem in December 2006.

At the time, health authorities only publicly disclosed changes in treatment to over a hundred women. Information that tests were incorrect for almost three times that number of women was not made public until this week, as a result of inquires for lawyers representing some of the women.

CBC reported Thursday that:

...Health Minister Ross Wiseman told the legislature Thursday that Eastern Health — which is largely funded by government, but operates at arm's length — was aware of the inaccurate test results more than a year ago.

However, he said, government officials were not notified until last August, and that the then health minister was not personally briefed until three months after that, in late November.

Health Minister Ross Wiseman said Eastern Health has known for more than a year about the error rate of hormone receptor testing.Health Minister Ross Wiseman said Eastern Health has known for more than a year about the error rate of hormone receptor testing.
(CBC)

Court documents reported earlier this week by CBC News showed an error rate of 42 per cent in a large set of samples, several times higher than a public estimates.

Wiseman said Eastern Health still may not know what went wrong with hormone receptor tests done between 1997 and 2005.

In the House of Assembly, Wiseman said that the health authority became away of a problem with testing in May 2005 and began a review of tests and procedures.

There was no explanation for the delays in briefing the health minister in 2006 or why the provincial health department concurred with legal advice that appears to have recommended partial disclosure of information.

The premier told the legislature today that his administration would conduct a thorough review of the matter bearing in mind the issues of liability and confidentiality.

-srbp-

The Do Nothing Department in a Do Nothing Administration

in American politics, there used to be the Know Nothings.

They were a group of native-born Americans who had a problem with immigrants yet whenever anyone asked a member of the group about it, he'd claim that he "knew nothing" at all.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, we should call the current administration a Do Nothing government.

You see, in 2004 a provincial government task force laid out a plan to deal with the problem of hospital-related infections. That's when you go to hospital and get sick from a bug you picked up in the place where you went to get better in the first place.

Anyway, it is now 2008.

Four, maybe five years later depending on how you count it.

The Auditor General released a report this week noting that not only does the province have no freakin' idea how many infections are caused by hospital infections or nor how many deaths come from those infections, but also that there are a raft of problems with hospital sterilization techniques and cleaning procedures.

That's pretty much what your grandmother taught you about disease prevention: wash your hands. Oh yeah, and boil things to make them sterile.

And the hospitals aren't quite getting it yet. But anyway, someone gave them a plan.

In 2004.

So, in response, health minister Ross Wiseman promises that by 2009 - that is 12 months from now and definitely five years AFTER the plan was laid out - there will be "significant progress" made on a "comprehensive, provincewide infection control program."

Uh huh.

And we are supposed to believe this from a guy whose department is embroiled in controversies of one form or another.

Like the breast cancer one.

Or the one also revealed this week where the health boards created in 2004 that were supposed to save money are actually costing more money.

And we are supposed to believe a guy who just by pure coincidence scheduled his media availability to coincide with one being held by his colleague minister talking about the InfoSec breach.

Flying wingman for a guy who is himself trying to obscure the facts of a very serious political and legal problem for government is not a way to enhance your credibility.

But then again, speaking of Jerome, this is a government where things explode, fail, fall-apart or collapse based on government inaction over a long period of time and the standard government response is that a "plan is in the works", that this is "a priority of government" and that "all is well."

These cabinet ministers seem to spend too much time torquing and talking to actually accomplish anything real.

Around these parts, they used to be the serial government: one thing after another.

But all this talking and lack of action is actually part of a bigger problem: this is a Do Nothing Administration.

-srbp-

Related:

- Serial government and Labrador

- "and there shall be plans, and planning for plans, and plans to co-ordinate the plans of the planning for plans..."