This article originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner in January 2021, but it is more relevant than ever. The provincial government may have changed, but media relations policies and lack of government openness have not. Meanwhile, media outlets and the number of journalists in Canada have continued to shrink, while the number of communications people and the onslaught of PR and propaganda have continued to grow. In his important 2023 book, Manipulating the message: how powerful forces shape the news, Cecil Rosner notes, “There are fewer than 12,000 reporters in Canada compared to nearly 160,000 employees in the advertising, public relations, and communications industry.” And those are Statistics Canada figures from 2023. Since then, several Canadian media outlets have made even more cuts to their news rooms and numbers of journalists. Because Meta is blocking all media on its platforms in Canada, I have decided to post more of my Halifax Examiner articles on this website, which – so far – Facebook and Instagram are not blocking.
Unbeknownst to many people — and definitely unbeknownst to me before I returned to Nova Scotia after many years of working overseas and resumed reporting here in 2016 — journalists do not have quite the same rights that other citizens do in this province.
Apparently we journalists are not supposed to try to get into direct contact with government experts or scientists or officials, as other citizens can do. Rather, all journalists’ inquiries to the Nova Scotia government are supposed to go through media relations people.
At least this is what I was told in May 2018.
This is how I learned that lesson.
Someone had sent me an online notice from the provincial government about an upcoming meeting in Halifax. The meeting was to discuss the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan that promotes the mining industry, so that Canada can “remain a global mining leader” (which is one way of depicting the tarnished reputation that Canadian mining companies have given Canada, causing environmental harm and human rights violations in countries all around the world).
I emailed the provincial government contact provided on the notice, Tracey Medynski, asking what opportunities there would be for media to interact with participants at the meeting, which was, after all, open to other citizens who registered in advance.
A reply came back from Don James, Executive Director of the Geoscience and Mines Branch, which had not yet been moved to the Department of Energy and Mines and was still part of the erstwhile Department of Natural Resources. James said there would be no opportunities for media at the meeting.
I wrote back to ask James why, if the meeting were a government-sponsored event as it clearly was, and if government employees were involved as they clearly were, the media would not have an opportunity to interact with them, so they could inform the public about the way their money was being spent on the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan.
I wish I were writing to you under better circumstances, and not when you are at such a low point in your history, so badly abused by 