Wanted: Gifted One-Way Communicator

I ran across this ad for a CBRM Communications/Information Officer in the course of researching this week’s treatise on access to information.

The closing date for applications is tomorrow — November 19 — so there’s still time for any of you not daunted by the list of 21 — TWENTY-ONE — “main functions” associated with the position. (Seriously, would you buy an appliance that claimed to serve 21 main functions?)

MAIN FUNCTIONS:

• Coordination of communications via the various channels including web, Social Media, and traditional media including coordination with external partners.
• Ensure CBRM’s website (CBRM, Police, and Centre 200) and social media channels have regular, quality content posted featuring our diverse programs, services and accomplishments
• Development of Corporate Communications Plan
• Media monitoring and social media analytics.
• Writing and Editing for web, social media, and traditional media to get relevant CBRM information out to the public in the various forms
• Create original content for newsletter articles and other written communications.
• Proof advertising and other promotional / marketing materials for grammar, readability, and adherence to corporate communications requirements including branding and visual standards.
• Provide advice to staff regarding consistent branding. Maintain templates and update style guide to enhance our brand.
• Ensure all public facing communications products are readily accessible to our residents and stakeholders.
• Liaise with the CBRM FOIPOP Officer in the processing of FOIPOP requests
• Providing advice and guidance to CBRM employees on the collection, use, disclosure and protection of personal information pursuant to FOIPOP privacy provisions
• Researching and analyzing legislation, OIPC and court decisions, policies and procedures to provide interpretation, advice and recommendations on privacy and security matters in relation to FOIPOP
• Developing orientation and training material and deliver sessions on FOIPOP to staff
• Work with EMO Coordinator in development of Plans including necessary ongoing communications for EMO
• Act as an Emergency Information Officer in event local state of emergency activated
• Work with senior CBRM staff in identifying and developing dataset for submission to CBRM’s Open Data Portal
• Liaise with external stakeholders in quantifying datasets and presentation of data
• Devising technical training programs according to organizational requirements
• Prepare training material (presentations, worksheets etc.)
• Execute training sessions, webinars, workshops etc. in groups or individually
• Other duties as assigned by the Director of Technology or designate.

Do you notice one “main function” barely mentioned? What about communicating with the press or facilitating communications between the press and CBRM staff or doing much of anything other than writing and broadcasting “content” the CBRM wishes to make public?

There’s this:

• Coordination of communications via the various channels including web, Social Media, and traditional media including coordination with external partners.

Which is not about answering questions, it’s about getting the CBRM’s message out.

And this:

• Comfort interacting with the public and media including being interviewed by the media and conducting interviews for municipal communications channels.

Which suggests the comms person will be pretending to be a reporter (“conducting interviews for municipal communications channels”) as much as dealing with reporters.

If this means CBRM employees are going to be permitted — as they should be — to speak directly to the media rather than having their every thought and word vetted by a communications officer, then three cheers, I’m all for it.

But if it means, which seems much more likely, that answering reporters’ questions is such a low-priority task it didn’t even make a 21-freaking-point list of responsibilities — unless you include it under “other duties as assigned by the Director of Technology designate” — then call me disgruntled.

FOIPOP

I should, I suppose, be happy to see these items:

• Liaise with the CBRM FOIPOP Officer in the processing of FOIPOP requests
• Providing advice and guidance to CBRM employees on the collection, use, disclosure and protection of personal information pursuant to FOIPOP privacy provisions
• Researching and analyzing legislation, OIPC and court decisions, policies and procedures to provide interpretation, advice and recommendations on privacy and security matters in relation to FOIPOP
• Developing orientation and training material and deliver sessions on FOIPOP to staff

But I’m not.

First, because it’s 2020 and the CBRM apparently has no FOIPOP “orientation and training material” for staff.

Second, because all of these FOIPOP-related responsibilities are tucked away in a list that includes 17 other “main” responsibilities.

But chiefly, because, as I’ve noted elsewhere this week, tasking a communications person with interpreting FOIPOP legislation seems like a bad idea. I think it would make more sense to separate the two positions and hire a communications person to handle the municipal Twitter account, etc, and a lawyer whose specialty is access to information to serve as information officer.

But where will we get the money, you ask?

If this cash-strapped municipality can find the funds to pay a dedicated communications person and an executive assistant for the mayor — which this cash-strapped municipality has done for the past eight years — then it can find the money to hire a qualified information officer. Especially one hired through the normal hiring processes of the CBRM, rather than one hand-picked by the mayor as “political staff.”

I’d be far less cranky about the one-way communications person if we had a functioning access to information system. Don’t get to talk to person you want to speak with? FOIPOP their communications!

The Communications/Information Officer position was last held by Jillian Moore, who left the CBRM pre-COVID and was replaced on an interim basis by Christina Lamey — former spokesperson for CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke turned interim manager of cruise marketing and development at the Port of Sydney turned head of marketing and business development at the Port of Sydney — who was “seconded” to the CBRM in March, just as the axe began to fall at the COVID-devastated Port Corp. CAO Marie Walsh told me at the time that Lamey had been brought on “as with COVID we needed someone right away.”

The job posting went up November 6 and closes as noted, tomorrow. I for one shall be watching with interest to see who is hired.