- Image provided by Sarcasm
A parasite is an member of the media that lives on or in a host organization and gets its news from or at the expense of its host. There are six main classes of parasites that can cause disease in Government: Investigative reporters, Photo Journalists, News Reporters, Reviewers, Columnists, and Feature Writers.
-BY EDITOR & CHIEF PARASITE, Dan Degenstien
This article references this report
February 10, 2023
I’d tell Bruce to ‘read the room,’ but judging from Reeve Schmidt calling our reporter’s efforts to learn more about a brand-new development in the RM as ‘Hounding,’ maybe Bruce is, in fact, great at reading social cues. This might make him a great confidant but, perhaps, not the best representative of the people. Or maybe he just thinks an echo is Schmidt’s favourite sound.
A ‘strategy’ is usually an outline of “best practices,” a plan. A way of getting something done in the most efficient way. So amidst Acting CAO, Camille Box, detailing her strategy to “...have a more positive relationship with the paper going forward,” Deputy Reeve Bruce Bondar chooses this meeting to call the media “Parasitic.”
“Feed, feed, feed,” He starts, a soapbox growing beneath his feet, “You’ve got to feed the media; otherwise, they are parasitic,” Bondar says.
This is maybe THE MOST negative way to convey the concept of open communication, though he later clarifies that he didn’t mean it negatively. Oh, okay, Bruce. He’s on the right track, though. The office of the RM should provide information to the media; otherwise, we will certainly ask for it. It’s an obligation we have to our readers, and it’s kind of the whole point.
Camille has been providing meeting reports. It’s a list of all the final decisions they made during that meeting, but absolutely no context as to how they arrived at those decisions, which is totally fine with us. That’s all we expect. So maybe Bruce understands the strategy very well but is just telegraphing it a bit too much and saying the quiet part loud. “... if they don’t get information, they constantly hound, constantly hound, constantly hound. So it’s better off we give them the information so they don’t have to, so it’s easier for them and it’s good for us.” Bondar says.
In any situation, by preemptively giving the media information, we might not come looking for it and, in the process, discover something interesting, notice an error or oversight, do some good in the community, or at the very least hear some of the cringy nonsense that some public officials are wont to say in these types of meetings when they forget they are public and act like the Meeting Room is their private clubhouse.
Any council member is entitled to their personal opinion, and, it’s their choice whether to voice that private opinion among peers about once a month in public and on the record.
We are here to report to the people what is going on in their local government while they are busy living their lives, working in the community, paying taxes and running businesses. In our case, the Canadian Government actually pays Jennifer to do that. This RM council has consistently found this relationship to be a chore. A burden they have to “deal with” a handful of times per year when these meetings take place.
Ratepayers in any RM should be concerned about the attitudes of their council members towards the media. Self-preservation is the only motivation to be leery of the press reporting on your activities. There is no place for that in a council designed to serve the public.
