RNC ruckus mishandled

If 911 services were in place for those in dire need of public relations advice, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Chief Joe Boland, the executive of the union representing cops and Justice Minister Andrew Parsons all should have had their fingers rubbed raw over the past couple of weeks tapping away at such an emergency number.

Or, better still, how about loading up a paddy wagon with a crowd of old fashioned spin doctors, professional flacks, turn on the sirens and have it dispatched immediately to the locales of the chief, the union head and the minister?

Because none of them have handled this recent ruckus, this war of words, in a fashion that would enhance the public’s confidence in constabulary policing in the province, the most critical element, after all, in this messy business, superseding charges, counter-charges, egos, and all the verbiage that has left the citizenry wondering just what the hell is going on in the world of cops, their boss and their political master.

The jurors in the court of public opinion are confused, and you can’t blame them.

Right from the outset, there were credibility problems with the way in which a poll was released showing a decided lack of confidence in the chief among rank and file: the findings were leaked not by a cop still active on the streets, but by a retired cop, and none other than Tim Buckle, whose inappropriate and ultimately well-publicized “heads up” to a colleague being investigated for a crime did absolutely nothing at the time to dispel the oft-thought notion that the police sometimes treat their own with the kind of sympathy, kid gloves and all, the average Jack and Jill would not receive as they tumble down a suspiciously illicit hill.

And probably more important, the accusations against Boland were practically devoid of details, the sort of details, as I say, the public desperately needed if it was to draw conclusions, one way or the other, about the state of affairs at Fort Townshend.

The survey question was shockingly simplistic: “Do you have confidence in the leadership of the chief of police?”

And here’s where I believe the media should have played a role of enhancement (a role not too late to play) by tracking down one cop after another, and talking to them, either on or off the record, about this alleged demoralization within the force, and seeking specifics about what it is that has apparently caused them to lose faith in their boss.

(Look, this is an intimate province, as we all know, and everybody knows a cop, or knows someone who knows a cop, is married to a cop, dates a cop, drinks with a cop; surely, a reporter could locate more than a few constabulary members willing to provide the kind of evidence that would substantiate the reasons for the poll results, or, even, it should be said, raise a few questions about the accuracy of the survey.)

And then we have the chief who reacted with the kind of petulance you’d expect to hear in the House of Assembly, and cries that he was basically being picked on, being bullied (oh, the horror), and leaving himself wide open to accusations (fair or not) that “thou doth protest too much.”

Any competent handler would have advised the chief that issuing a statement, without making himself available for media interviews, was also a public relations mistake, leaving the impression that he felt uncomfortable expanding on his counter charges against the union, and, as well, that the citizenry he answers to should merely accept his explanation, period.

(Again, just to pontificate once more about my friends in the reporting business: I would have resurrected the apparently out of style journalistic ambush and confronted the chief outside his offices, cameras rolling, and insisted on a comment. He may, indeed, been thus forced to elaborate on his statement, and, if not, there would have been a telling shot on the evening newscast of the chief scrambling to his vehicle).

And, of course, third in our group of clients in need of PR enlightenment was Parsons the politician who exhibited a wishy-washy brand of mediation that muddied the waters: everything was grand in the garden, the union were a grand bunch, the chief was a grand fellow. (The minister would have been quite at home with a love-in from the 1960s, smoking some thenillegal dope with me and my contemporaries, and belting out some sappy song by The Seekers.)

Now, granted, this matter with the police, as disconcerting as it may be, pales in comparison with what’s going on to the south of us, where images of brutality by cops against Black men seem to be a regular occurrence on nightly newscasts.

(An aside here — the brilliant comedian and satirist Chris Rock had a great comeback when U.S. President Donald Trump and company argued there were just a few “bad apples” in police forces throughout America: Policing is a profession that can’t allow “bad apples,” Rock said. It would like an airline explaining that it has a few “bad apples” among its pilots: “Yes, we have the odd bad apple who likes to fly a jumbo jet into a mountain, but that’s the extent of it.”)

But our local situation, nevertheless, is not exactly acceptable, with none of the participants smelling like a rose.

A cautionary public relations tale.