This week's Calgary Herald column from yours truly has a look back at the weekend Tory convention, and specifically Premier Stelmach's declaration that the media is "the biggest problem we're facing as a government":
...Although, if I may be so blasphemous, perhaps the reality of the situation is not quite as the premier frames it.
After all, it is possible that the media bears no responsibility whatsoever for the Tory malaise.
Perhaps the media has simply reported accurately on the government's shortcomings and missteps.
Perhaps the media has reported accurately on the building enthusiasm for the Wildrose Alliance.
Perhaps the premier's comments represent an arrogant and desperate government refusing to acknowledge that Albertans are quickly losing faith in them.
To expand on the old saying: don't shoot the messenger and don't shoot the messaging. Shoot the policies and shoot the governing.
When you get right down to it, it is quite pathetic for a government in control of a massive, multi-million dollar PR machine to be complaining about its failure to communicate.
If anything, it serves as further evidence of their own ineptitude.
Stelmach indicated that part of this new strategy would be to bypass the media and communicate more directly with Albertans.
Trouble is, they've tried that, with underwhelming results to say the least.
You'd be forgiven for not remembering, but it was only last month when we were all subjected to "The Way Forward", the premier's heavily promoted televised address.
Here is a perfect example of what the premier claims is missing from his communications strategy: a direct connection to voters, a platform unfiltered by the media.
What did we get? Very little beyond warm and fuzzy platitudes. The premier demanded a stage and then didn't know what to do with it.
Given that wasted opportunity, it remains a mystery as to what it is that the Premier is being prevented from sharing with all of us.
In Red Deer Saturday, the Premier claimed, "I really do feel that the policies we have are the right ones for Alberta, but it's difficult to get it through the present media that's available to us."
For now, we'll just have to take his word regarding these fantastic-though-unspecified policies. However, here's a question to ponder: if indeed this government has the "right policies for Alberta", why the need for "change"?
"Changes are coming," the Premier himself declared this past weekend.
How can it be simultaneously true that the Stelmach government has the right policies and that we need change?
Do they really inhabit a world where logic allows for such a contradiction or is the premier simply just making it up as he goes along?
No wonder this government has communication issues. Although, even the slickest of communications strategies cannot mask this amount of confusion and disarray.
Before revising their plan for dealing with the media, or crafting new infomercials and websites, this government might want to figure out what exactly it stands for and where exactly it intends on taking this province.
The government would have you believe that more favorable media coverage would simply be correcting an imbalance - the end of a malicious anti-Stelmach agenda.
What it really would amount to is a complete abdication of the media's responsibilities. An expectation that the media pass on the spin rather than cut through it - creating an echo chamber for the empty boasts of a party in denial.
While the government lashes out at strawmen and invisible conspirators, Albertans continue for wait for real leadership.
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