There’s nothing like an electoral contest in the political waters of Newfoundland to bring flacks to the surface, like mud trout after flies.
Even if this latest competition, the Liberal leadership race, will be more of a coronation — a cinematic title might be “The Doctor Who Would Be King,” to steal from that glorious Michael Caine/Sean Connery flick of many years ago — the grand prize of the premier’s chair has guaranteed the Flack Flotilla would make an appearance in full salesmanship force.
As reported in the media a few days ago, Eilanda Anderson, an executive assistant to Transportation and Works Minister Steve Crocker, has rallied other such executive assistants in the present administration to take to the phones immediately to ensure Dr. Andrew Furey is the next premier and — not coincidentally — the man who’ll decide which of their present bosses will be in his cabinet.
All their work, naturally, is supposed to take place after hours, a stipulation made abundantly clear only after the rallying cry from that eager beaver of an executive assistant — in the form of an email — was made public. And I mean to say you just know such image-makers, paid by the public, would never, ever be tempted during the workday, say during a coffee break, to make a quick phone call on behalf of Dr. Furey. Not at all. Wouldn’t happen. Not in a million Smallwood years.
Also on the flack news radar this past week came word that Fred Hutton has deserted a 30-year career in journalism to become an “adviser” to the wannabe premier Furey, and help draw up the right prescription to sell the good doctor to Newfoundland, to encourage and approve projects in the future that would have the same objective as the Telephonitis For Furey campaign launched by the executive assistant brigade.
Because that’s the mandate across the board in any enterprise for advisers, flacks, P.R. types, executive assistants, et al; in politics, in particular, it’s to make the boss electable, and keep the boss in power. And, in the case now before us, it’s to wrap Furey in the kind of patriotic ribbon that will make him appear as the greatest gift to come our way since Cavendish Boyle penned “The Ode to Newfoundland” in 1902.
There’s nothing like an electoral contest in the political waters of Newfoundland to bring flacks to the surface, like mud trout after flies.
Of course, these men and women of the flack corps describe themselves as professional communicators, folks with an expertise in making sure the message from their masters is relayed accurately to the people, the voters, who’ll make the ultimate call on a politician’s standing. In other words, they’re paid to make the guy or the gal look good, sound good, a job that inherently requires the enacting of spin that is not always within the bounds of unqualified veracity.
But if you’re able to swallow that sometimes uncomfortable aspect of the position, then you’ll sleep like a baby, unencumbered by pangs of conscience.
However, I always find it is foot-shuffling time, somewhat discouraging, when a journalist — someone who, in Fred Hutton’s case, has spent decades aggressively demanding accountability from politicians — steps across the trenches to the other side, and decides to use journalistic know-how to stroke a political message.
Last summer, I wrote a piece about Hutton’s nomadic adventures in the news business, from NTV to VOCM to the CBC and back to VOCM, and presumptuously took it upon myself to advise the wandering reporter that he should embrace his time as a journalist in demand because eventually he’d get old and become, as I have, according to the mockery of a few of my former colleagues, “yesterday’s hero.” (People in the news business have taken to referring to Hutton as “Fled” Hutton, because he has spent recent years fleeing from one job to another).
But there was no way to predict at that time that Hutton (a decent and well-liked fella, by the way) would engage in the ultimate reversal of roles, journalist to flack (oops, I mean “adviser”) — a spin doctor for the doctor.
I’m sure Hutton would argue, as have all those who’ve engaged in similar alterations of ideology in the past, that he believes in the Furey vision, that he wishes to help his new boss make Newfoundland a better place in which to live, especially during these tough times, blah, blah, blah.
Those are the platitudes of a politician, or an adviser to a politician, and Hutton has them in full swing, if an interview I heard Furey give on CBC Radio the other day was any example. It was a lengthy exchange with Ted Blades that, to me, was short on details, contained a whiff of naiveté, and espoused a generic strategy of innovation on a “go ahead” basis.
A variation on a famous old television commercial came to mind: “Hey, Doc, where’s the beef?”
But that’s Hutton’s job now, to supply the “beef,” or to convince his former colleagues in the news business that there is, indeed, plenty of “beef,” even on those occasions when he will be profoundly aware that such is not the case.
Hutton spent many a day as the journalistic beagle in pursuit of the political bunny.
Now it is his job to do whatever is required to protect the soon to be Premier Bugs.
Bob Wakeham has spent more than 40 years as a journalist in Newfoundland and Labrador. He can be reached by email at [email protected]
