Babel-on-the-Bay promised a month or so ago to ignore the municipal scene until it becomes relevant. That will be after Labour Day. In the meantime, we have two more months of glorious summer in which to revel. Why spoil it? And why is Toronto’s soon-to-be-former mayor getting all the newspaper space and radio and television time in the middle of the summer? Is he that much better at feeding the beast?
In many years of public relations and political work, we have written hundreds of thousands of words each year to feed the media beast. Whether news releases, scripts, speeches, backgrounders or opinion pieces, the media is a ravenous beast and you work continuously to keep it fed and happy.
But there is always the caveat that your food for the beast is tainted with a supposed lack of objectivity. It is suspect. Too often, you have to use subterfuge. There is the sly slip of the tongue in conversation, the careful spin on what the reporter has already seen and the helpful leads. They are all part of the games used in feeding the beast.
But what has become of the innocence and honour that allowed you to go home each day, hug your children and say, “I did good work today”?
You never needed to lie. You never needed to defame opponents. Yes, you sometimes walked briskly past the negatives but never to create a lie. We left that to others.
You leave the deliberate slanting of news to the news media. They have their bias, their motives often obvious and sometimes obscured. You rarely risk censure to buck the flavour of the day. It never pays to argue with the beast.
There is a truism of the media that says: If it bleeds, it leads. The toughest problem in feeding the media beast is to find fresh blood for them.
And that is why the poor bastards cannot resist the meal the mayor of Toronto presents to them. Even when not in residence, he plays hide and seek with the media. He defies their moralistic shams. He lies to them. He abuses them. He restricts their access to him. He hides. He laughs at them. He reviles them. For him, it appears to be a game.
We can all enjoy the game as it plays out to the end of October. Then, there has to be a new sheriff in town.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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