This just in-house as Ford makes his own news
PC leader’s simulated items ‘a first in Canada’
A microphone-toting reporter stands by the side of the road, her hair whipped by the wind, as if breathlessly reporting breaking news. Clips show Doug Ford addressing the media at a press event. There are interviews with “ordinary citizens” at an auto body shop and a pub, shots of concerned voters at a town hall-style meeting.
The report on the Ontario Conservative Leader’s electricity-rates announcement this week looked and felt like an actual TV-news item.
But the video was not produced by a television station or working journalists.
It was one of several generated in recent days by the Ford campaign itself, a seemingly unprecedented way to showcase his message before the June 7 election — and compete with real news coverage that tends not to be so glowingly positive.
Playing the part of the reporter in all of the videos is Lyndsey Vanstone, Ford’s executive assistant and, until recently, his press secretary.
The simulated news items, posted on Facebook, have been viewed as many as 732,000 times each, and generated hundreds of shares.
“I think this is a first, or at least a first in Canada,” said Brett James, partner with the Sussex Strategy Group and a veteran Conservative consultant. “Part of me thinks, ‘Wow, what took people so long?’ … I think it’s an effective format.”
Behind it all is a Ford campaign manager with both partisan and television experience. Kory Teneycke was a press secretary to ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and head of the now-defunct conservative Sun TV network.
But the FordNation Live pieces also underline Ford’s fractious relationship with journalists, who he has repeatedly accused of bias against him, Liberal favouritism — and outright lying.
“The media isn’t going to give us a fair shake,” he told supporters earlier this year as he vied for the PC leadership. The party needs a chief who can “stand up to the media,” he declared at one leadership debate.
The imitation news pieces allow Ford to reach voters without his message being filtered by reporters, while using a recognizable journalistic format, says Josh Greenberg, director of the Carleton University journalism school.
“It’s a form of message control. All parties do this,” he said. “It’s the way in which they’re choosing to do it that is unique … The use of a legacy-media aesthetic — the look and feel of a traditional news broadcast.”
Ford’s enmity toward the media seems to date from his 2010-to-2014 stint as a Toronto city councillor. He spent much of that time defending his late brother Rob against accusations — eventually proven true — that the mayor drank heavily and smoked crack cocaine while in office.
Ford came under fire recently when he decided not to provide the traditional bus for media following his campaign. His news conferences tend to be cut off after just a few questions, and many of his policy announcements have been made far from Toronto and the legislative press corps that tracks election issues most closely.
But he has generally avoided conflict with the media — and been more disciplined overall — in this political incarnation. Asked to describe Ford’s opinion of the media, campaign spokeswoman Melissa Lantsman said only that “Doug has press conferences every day he is out.”
At the same time “we take every opportunity to connect directly with Ontario voters, including online,” she said.
The news videos posted on Facebook are marked with a FordNation logo, as is the microphone used by Vanstone. An obvious pro-Ford slant (with no airtime for contrary views) are further tipoffs that this is not real news coverage.
And yet Vanstone, a former radio producer whom Lantsman said is being paid by the party, is not identified as a Ford staff member.
Viewers who lack media savvy could be misled into thinking it’s real news, argued Paul Knox, a professor emeritus at the Ryerson University journalism school.
He says such social-media productions should begin and end with the same disclaimers required for party TV spots, indicating they are produced by the campaign.
Greenberg said he does not believe the Conservatives are aiming to “hoodwink” viewers into thinking these items are real journalism. But if the idea is copied widely by other politicians, and embraced by the public, it might signal a weakening of the legacy media’s role, he said.
Online video generally has become crucial in the world of political and other public relations, said James, who notes that Sussex now has its own production studio to serve clients. The Ford team’s “innovative” iteration of the trend is likely to be emulated by others, he said. “I suspect this won’t be the last.”