Winnipeggers expect a degree of transparency regarding the services they pay for, and when something goes wrong, deserve informed answers. But the city’s increasing reliance on all-purpose spokespeople, rather than those directly involved or affected concerning municipal services, does little to provide the public with clear answers.
Take the ongoing questions regarding security at the Millennium Library. A recent Free Press article about the continued closure of the community connections space at the flagship location contains quotes from activists, advocates, the president of the union representing library workers, a city councillor and an emailed statement from a city spokesperson — but not a single word from a current employee in the library system, nor even from Karin Borland, the city’s manager of library services.
It’s not surprising library employees have turned to a whisper campaign. A few weeks ago, the Instagram account @wpglibraryfacts was launched to give them an outlet to anonymously air their grievances about staffing levels, low salaries, security concerns and loss of services, without fear of repercussion.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Security at the Millennium Library
The account, which now has more than 1,200 followers, reveals a deep dissatisfaction with the situation in Winnipeg’s public libraries, but also a real sadness about employees’ lack of agency in making changes and their inability to be heard.
One recent post reads: “Have you ever wondered why library staff are not quoted in articles about the library? It’s because they are not allowed. City of Winnipeg/library employees are forbidden to talk to the media. Instead, city communication people, who have likely never been in a library, speak on our behalf.”
Of course, preventing city employees from speaking to the media is fairly standard. Having a manager deal with either customer complaints or media inquiries is both a means of shielding employees from harassment and a way for the city to be sure people with full knowledge of the situation are the ones being quoted on the record. (However, it’s worth noting the Winnipeg Public Library is the only large city library system in Canada where the city council is its governing body; others are governed by boards.)
But the phrase “an emailed statement from a spokesperson” is now being repeated in news story after news story to farcical effect. The same spokesperson has, in the last few months, provided media responses to the Tartan Towing fiasco, the Leisure Guide swimming-lessons debacle and the kerfuffle over unleashed dogs on the river trails.
Emailed responses are an unsatisfactory contribution to news articles; they often evade the initial question and provide no immediate means for followup queries or further explanation.
And it’s not just the city that’s guilty of shutting relevant voices out of important discourse. In the past, reporters could reach out to the province or the WRHA with a media request and expect a response from a deputy minister with knowledge of that particular portfolio or the manager in charge of the department in question. But substantive, live responses from people with experience in the matter at hand have increasingly been replaced with generic, anonymous emailed statements from a communications department, usually couched in bureaucratic bafflegab.
The release of the preliminary security audit of Millennium Library would have been one way for city library employees to have their opinions heard. However, it seems possible the full and unabridged audit will not be released to the public, once again stifling their voices.
How did we learn this? Via emailed statement from an anonymous spokesperson, of course.
