St. Boniface MP Shelly Glover calls the brouhaha that’s erupted over Waterbottlegate a “media tragedy.”
And she’s right. Her handling of media interest in the story has been tragically, horrifically bad. Which is a bit surprising considering Glover’s previous work as a spokesperson for the Winnipeg Police Service.
Offering Conservative-branded water bottles to school kids was certainly an error in judgment, but a relatively minor one. The smart thing would have been to just say “I wasn’t aware of the policy. I’m going to work with the school division to come up with an alternate incentive for students to study French.” And then get on the damn phone and sort the situation out quickly.
Instead, she went after the Free Press with service revolver a blazin’, accusing it of media exploitation. This just gave the story legs. Now Ray Simard has had a chance to chime in, dozens of comments have been left on the Freep website, and folks like me are blogging about it. And aside from a few Conservative fanboys who just love it when somebody tries to ’stick it’ to the media, the vast majority of public comment on the issue has been negative.
A simple PR lesson for politicians of all stripes and ages: sometimes the easiest way to make a bad story go away is to simply admit you screwed up, and then get on with your work.
Most voters don’t really care much about minor mistakes, we all make them. But they will definitely remember the time you looked like a complete ass in the newspaper.
Filed under: winnipeg blog | Tagged: Conservatives, shelly glover
Anyone who has dealt with Shelly Glover as the police spokesman knows she is a ticking time bomb. She has a terrible temper and never admits she is wrong. If I was Harper, I would be very careful about putting her in any sort of position of power.
Amen, corydon18. Amen.
This is what I heard in her soundbites:
“I WAS JUST TRYING TO *GET INVOLVED* AND WHY DON’T YOU WANT POLITICIANS TO GET INVOLVED? YOU HATE FREEDOM, DON’T YOU. EVERYONE KNOWS WHEN YOU DO A GOOD DEED YOU HAVE TO PUT YOUR LOGO ON IT SO PEOPLE KNOW YOU DID IT. I THOUGHT THAT WAS OBVIOUS. I THINK YOU PEOPLE HATE FREEDOM.”
“Which is a bit surprising considering Glover’s previous work as a spokesperson for the Winnipeg Police Service.”
Whoa! A better statement would have been, “Which is absolutely not surprising considering Glovers previous work as a spokesperson for the Winnipeg Police Service”
I concur entirely with corydon 18 as I have had the pleasure of those same dealings.
I think the real tragedy here is that Glover thinks that French immersion students will give a rat’s as* about her stupid water bottles, logo or not.
I hope she continues to grab all the rope she needs… Her handling of this was impressively clumsy for a former PR flack.
Speaking as someone from her riding who has two children in French Immersion I call BS.
There were two stories ran on this. The first one she said to the reporter, “I know where you are going with this” in a ‘the media is out to get me’ tone. The first story ended there.
This is BS because the FP editorials have been very favourable to the conservatives. A single reporter asking a legitimate question about a brain fart/lapse in judgement is not a media conspiracy Shelly.
Then the after she gets her response from the conservative war room she comes back the next day with the typical style of talking points that have eptomized Harper’s government – “it’s all about the children”, “the media is out to get us” and of course end it with “bbbbbbut the liberals”.
The job spin was funny because it’s usually western conservatives who go all ape shit about language requirements for federal jobs. Perhaps Shelly should have a sitdown with some of here western colleagues and spin that one on them.
And no one I know in the riding is “ashamed” to speak french. What a load of BS. As a bilingual person of French heritage I’m offended at such an inference. People speak french quite freely here, in the stores, social events, playing in the park. It’s a natural and accepted part of the mosaic here.
The only one who should be ashamed is Glover for actually trying to push that crap on us.
Don’t you just love it when you here a politician say the other parties are treating the public like they’re stupid? And then turn around and do the same.
WOW. I am astounded at all of the responses to this blog. ITS A WATERBOTTLE!!!!!! I can not believe you people have nothing better to do with your time then to complain about this. I do believe this was an attack on the conservative party. I live in Winnipeg Centre and am constantly seeing newsletters come home from my children’s school with the NDP logo ALL OVER IT!!!!! But somehow this is acceptable? Has this story been in the paper? Of course not!!! The media is completely biased and liberal and i see it everyday on the news and in the paper and it upsets me….and i’m a liberal!!!! I applaud Shelly for at least trying to get involved with french immersion students and show she gives a damn, which is more then i can say for the previous MP, Raymond Simard. She put her logo on a water bottle…..thousands of businesses do it everyday, but because shes a politician its a scandal??? As far as being ashamed of speaking french goes, i see it everyday. My friends children are in french immersion and she is constantly telling me how she feels like shes pulling teeth when she tries to get them to use their french. They need to be more encouraged in schools and im glad someone is finally realizing it. I think you all need to get over yourselves and find something worth complaining about…
@C Martynuk – If your child is coming home with newsletters covered in NDP logos, then I suggest you contact Bruce Owen at the Free Press and provide him with samples. I’m sure he’d love to follow up on that.
Most of the criticism around this incident has been related to Glover’s handling of the media, not the water bottle offer itself. As I pointed out above, she could have handled this in a non-combative fashion that would have killed the story right away. Instead, she took a clumsy run at the reporter and it backfired.
Bruce Owen is a joke. I’ve been reading the comments left on the winnipeg free press website in regards to this article, and everytime a positive comment was posted, it had vanished the next time i had returned to the page, leaving only the negative comments left to leave a bad impression on readers. Now when i try to post a comment regarding the mysterious disappearances, it tells me my comment has been sent to a moderator for review. I think Shelly has every right to claim the media is out to get her and is biased against conservatives….the events i have witnessed today have proven just that! Even if CMartinuk sent this NDP filled school letter to the Winnipeg Free Press im sure it would be tossed aside just like the positive comments towards Shelly Glover. I am absolutely disgusted with the Free Press. I will be cancelling my subscription tomorrow.
@ C Martynuk — While you say that you’re a Liberal, it sounds to me like you’re very much a Conservative. That aside, if she had offered to donate water bottles that would have been fine; the problem lies in donating bottles with a Conservative logo on the side. Public schools are not the place for partisan politics. What’s more, the possibility existed that these bottles would have been paid for by the tax payer (see Globe and Mail article this past Saturday). I would suggest that this is a bit of a problem too. Tax dollars should not be used for partisan purposes.
@ Jamie — I find what you’re saying very hard to believe. And, the WFP is certainly not out to get the Conservatives — it’s a Conservative paper owned by Conservatives.
“Shelly has ever right to claim the media is out to get her.”
Just like Sarah Palin!
A conservative paper? What?? Why then was Mary Agnes Welch assigned to campaign for the NDP during the last election? That’s when I cancelled my subscription.
It is truly frightening how the “liberal media” meme is catching with Conservatives here in Canada. It is one of those signs of folks who have eaten so much propaganda from their own party that their is no truth but the party’s truth.
Anyone who thinks the WFP isn’t a conservative newspaper probably also thinks we have too high property taxes here, totally out to lunch.
“If your child is coming home with newsletters covered in NDP logos, then I suggest you contact Bruce Owen at the Free Press and provide him with samples. I’m sure he’d love to follow up on that.”
Policyfrog have you lost your mind, everyone knows that Bruce Owen viciously attacked local blogger Jim Cotton in front of the Manitoba legislature a year ago, the fact that he is still employed by The Winnipeg Free Press says a lot about the character of the people who run that rag.
@Will – My point was that if this person’s child is really coming home from school with NDP newsletters then contact the reporter who wrote the Glover story. If he does nothing then the media bias claims have a little more weight.
Dear Will Will:
I guess I’m not “everyone,” because I don’t know.
Please fill me in on what “viciously attacked” means or I’ll assume it’s BS.
@ jamie
Posted by: jamie
November 16, 2009 at 6:26 PM
How come all the positive comments that are left in regards to this article keep disappearing leaving only the negative to influence readers…..sketchy sketchy…..
[Editor's note: I have reviewed all of the comments approved and rejected in our system on this story and can find no evidence that any positive comments on the story were rejected after they were posted. A half-dozen comments on this story were rejected as they included name-calling, slander or unproven allegations; none of the rejected comments supported Ms Glover.]
@ marty gold
I contacted the WFP after reading this “Editors note” and gave them e-mail address’ for three separate people who have contacted me and told me they left positive comments on the article that had been removed. I had also read numerous positive comments myself, before they were deleted, as i was checking back on this article regularly because i was interested in the reactions. One girl even informed me that she printed off her comment she left before it was deleted and is planning on contacting the WFP. ALSO, i tried leaving a post stating just what i told you above on the article, and low and behold it was never posted.
I’m not trying to fight that Glover was in the right or take a stand on this is anyway, all im saying is that the WFP DID delete comments and is trying to influence readers and that to me isnt right. There are enough negative reactions to this story as is without the readers being influenced so there should be no need for the positive comments to be completely erased. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I’m not saying the whole paper is Liberal and its a huge conspiracy or anything like that. I’m just stating that the comments on this article were handled poorly and it aggravates me that the WFP would stoop this low. I have always thought of the WFP as not being a biased newspaper, im starting to rethink my stand on that.
@ jamie- could you email me please, talk at kick dot fm
@Jamie – Interesting. I’ll see if the Freep’s online editor might be willing to swing by here to respond.
I smell baked ham…
We stand by our investigation into these allegations. Many people think comments are deleted, but they actually move in the queue as other comments come into the system. I was working this day, with one other editor on duty. Neither of us deleted these comments. As was pointed out to Jamie, two of the people cited in the comments do not have registered email addresses in our system and therefore could not have left comments in the first place. There may also be confusion with comments left on our Facebook page…
@Uptown- If you read blogs on the internet then you should know what I’m talking about, if not here.
http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2008/12/police-investigate-winnipeg-free-press.html
Wow, 24 posts and its degenerated back to a Free Press bash.
( psst, just in case you haven’t realized by now, while he drives his mionty Porsche, Silver couldn’t give a shit what you think )
As for Glover, rookie mistake. She’ll be reelected.
“@Uptown- If you read blogs on the internet then you should know what I’m talking about, if not here.”
@Will Williamson – thank you for your arrogance. Strange – I read blogs, but of the forty million or so out there, The Black Rod doesn’t creep onto my reading list much.
“http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2008/12/police-investigate-winnipeg-free-press.html”
That’s in December *2008*. What’s happened since then? Was Owen charged, tried, or convicted? Although if I heard some fool asking people about porkgate, I might have trouble controlling my temper, too. It’s a stupid issue.
Especially the part about how the taxpayer paid for the pork to be given to the poor, which the Free Press employees on the picket line were not.
And the fact the story changed 5 or 6 times.
And all these “professional’ journalists couldn’t say exactly who it was that delivered the meat to them without the knowledge of Harvest.
And an FP reporter trying to intimidate a blogger who was asking a cabinet minister about it..
Nope, nothing important about it at all.
Marty comeon….they don’t give a squat about Crocus, you really think they give a crap about some po’ folk eating pork.
Me thinks the wrong pig is being chased.
But , keep up the good work.
Marty, I asked for facts, not more self-justification.
Will-Will said Cotton was *viciously attacked.*
Now you said Owen was *trying to intimidate him.*
Hell, raising your voice or staring at someone the wrong way could be considered trying to intimidate someone.
Which is it… was Owen charged or not, was he brought to trial or not, was he convicted or not. Facts please, not more bs about your private pork fantasies
Uptown, explain to all of us, what justification would a Free Press reporter have to confront someone asking a Minister a question, in ANY manner? Do you actually condone that type of action ?
And the pilfering of taxpayer-paid food that was redirected from the poor and hungry to a newspaper union whose members all suffered amnesia about how it got to their picket line is not a fantasy, but rather a cold, hard fact.
@ the last part of the comment thread.
Ah yes, the messenger is to blame for Shelly’s brain fart.
@ Uptown,
Responding to ad hominem attacks simply allows trolls to hijack comment threads. Playing into their game provides them with their goal, which is distraction.
“Uptown, explain to all of us, what justification would a Free Press reporter have to confront someone asking a Minister a question, in ANY manner? Do you actually condone that type of action ?”
Do I believe free speech gives reporters the right to confront people asking Ministers stupid questions, just as much as it protects blowhard blog posters who keep dodging requests for proof of their allegations?
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.
Oh and fair advice, j adams. I’ll try to follow it in future.
@Uptown- you have been given the facts, you just chose to ignore them.
If it was a “vicious attack” with witnesses agreeing to this claim, Owen would d have been charged by the cops and the process would have moved forward from there.
Three posts later, and you still haven’t told me if that actually happened or not, so it seems as though the only facts established so far are:
1. Jim Cotton’s obviously sensitive ego is bruised, and
2. Self-righteous bloggers will say anything about MSM reporters to exhibit their self-righteousness.
Since we already knew #2, there’s still a lot of “newshole” to fill here. So for the third time, Will, or I’ll be a little less polite next time:
…after Cotton talked tough about pressing charges, what happened? If nothing happened, then what makes you so certain that this happened the way your blog reading makes you think it happened? Why do you keep avoiding this pertinent question?
How did we get so far off Shelly – or does she have that volume of political flacks attached to her to so easily distract this thread?
uptown, don’t you just hate it when you ask a simple question and no answer,
I am curious now, Was a charge filed ? How vicious was Jimmy really “attacked”……..gawd this is exciting.
If he was viciously attacked, why didn’t he file a charge ? Hmmmmmm.
I’m starting to think that the outrage generated by Porkgate hiijacking comment threads has far exceeded whatever outrage may have been generated by Porkgate itself.
Rightly so.
Glover’s idea that gifting a 50 cent crappy water bottle to a student is laughable.