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Canadian Bureacracy Can't Answer Simple Question: What's This Study With NASA?
Saint Aardvark writes "It seemed like a pretty simple question about a pretty cool topic: an Ottawa newspaper wanted to ask Canada's National Research Council about a joint study with NASA on tracking falling snow in Canada. Conventional radar can see where it's falling, but not the amount — so NASA, in collaboration with the NRC, Environment Canada and a few universities, arranged flights through falling snow to analyse readings with different instruments. But when they contacted the NRC to get the Canadian angle, "it took a small army of staffers— 11 of them by our count — to decide how to answer, and dozens of emails back and forth to circulate the Citizen's request, discuss its motivation, develop their response, and "massage" its text." No interview was given: "I am not convinced we need an interview. A few lines are fine. Please let me see them first," says one civil servant in the NRC emails obtained by the newspaper under the Access to Information act. By the time the NRC finally sorted out a boring, technical response, the newspaper had already called up a NASA scientist and got all the info they asked for; it took about 15 minutes."
The Prime Ministers office is obsessed with US-style 'controlling the message'. No public statement may be made by anyone employed by the government without approval of a political officer. This has even recently been extended to the RCMP, and has affected publicly funded science for a long time. No information from our government is free of political meddling and spin designed to further the agenda of the Conservative party - which cares about only one thing: Being re-elected forever.
Sadly this seems to work and they are resisting scandals that would normally fall a government (eg giving false information to the public is typically certain death for a government in Canada). These people don't respect our democracy or the need for free information from the government, they don't deserve to run our country, but we are stuck with them for the foreseeable future, and it is unlikely any future government will dismantle all this information control infrastructure. :(
There is no mystery here. The Harper government has been suppressing any discussion of environment and climate topics that even come anywhere near to talking about climate change. Scientists and agencies are legitimately afraid for their funding and their jobs.
Oh, right. Not allowed unless approved by the control freaks we have at the top of the political system at the moment.
I think it's time for ordinary Canadian citizens (and anyone else in the world that wants to help) to start firing off enough requests to Canadian government scientific institutions that we can eventually overwhelm the pinheads in charge of "messaging" and they let us speak with the people doing the work. We used to be able to do that easily, but it has been getting worse and worse over the years. It has achieved truly ridiculous levels of obfuscation with the current government. Scientists should be allowed to speak their minds on scientific matters of public concern. It's good research being paid for with OUR tax dollars. Stop trying to hide it from us for the sake of "controlling the message". If you want to save money, fire the expensive idiots in charge of the "messaging". Scientists are quite capable of delivering a useful message if you let them do their jobs.
If you ever wonder why scientific budgets in Canada continue to decline in terms of money available for research and scientific staff, but the "upper management" and "PR people" staff get bigger and bigger to manage the smaller pool of scientists, this is the answer. These people have nothing to do all day but spin the story to align with the politics of the day.
Canadian government bureaucracies are a nightmare. About seven years ago I was working on a project where we needed access to some government data under similar circumstances. It ended up being a lot quicker going through the US State Department to request the data from the US Army Corps of Engineers than it was to get it from the Canadian government.
Unfortunately, if TFA is to be believed, the waffling was on the part of 'communications' flacks, not actual scientists. To be sure, scientists are unlikely to be enthusiastic about being misquoted(though, if they've done anything high profile before, probably view it as inevitable, no matter How Slowly And Loudly They Explain Their Work With Small Words...); but it isn't even clear that the email chain manages to involve any scientists, let alone giving them the final word on their research.
The current Harper government has been in the news quite a bit lately for muzzling scientists. The Harper government seems obsessed with controlling information coming from any government agency.
Can't wait until he is turfed out.
Anarchists never rule
As a science journalist who has been in this situation a few times, I would ask you, how do you think you would get a more accurate story:
(1) By letting the journalist speak to the scientist, who can explain the research to the journalist,
or
(2) by refusing to communicate with the journalist, and letting the journalist figure it out himself, from an abstract or technical paper?
Let's assume that the reporter is dumb and doesn't understand the science. Choice (2) will give you an even less accurate story. You want to spread ignorance? Don't explain things to journalists. Don't let the public know what you're doing.
But actually, the Canadians have pretty good science journalists and editors.
When I write a complicated story, and it's important to get every fact right, I tell the source, "Let me read my notes back to you to make sure I'm getting you right."
If you're a scientist, and you're worried about being quoted accurately, I would suggest that you say, "Could you read your notes back to me to make sure you're quoting me right?"
That's not the same as reviewing the story for approval. The reporter has a right to write whatever he wants. You have a right to make sure that when he quotes you, he gets your quotes right. A competent PR guy would know how to do that.
A competent PR guy would look at the reporter's other stories, if he had any doubt, and see whether he gets his facts right. But the Ottawa Citizen is a real newspaper, so they should know what they're doing.
But this incident goes beyond worrying about errors. They're terrified that somehow, something might possibly go wrong, despite past experience, and that fear weighs more heavily than the interest in doing their job and informing and educating the public about what their government is doing with their tax money.
You've solved the dilemma right there. It took NASA *scientists* 15 minutes to do it where it took 51 *bureaucrats*. That is the definition of bureaucracy, the obfuscation of information. Seems they are doing their jobs perfectly.
You've solved the dilemma right there. It took NASA *scientists* 15 minutes to do it where it took 51 *bureaucrats*. That is the definition of bureaucracy, the obfuscation of information. Seems they are doing their jobs perfectly.
Also notice how the numbers from both sources form a perfect palidrome: 15 51 (1551) and 51 15 (5115)... those geniuses at the National Research Council (NRC) knew that National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) would only require 15 minutes but the mathematician at NRC has a palidrome fetish so he/she delayed until 51 people had handled the request in part or in whole. Oh, 1551 + 5115 equal 6666 which compared to 666 is the mark of the Super Beast not just the Beast. And 6666 itself is a palidrome...my goodness the good little bureaucrats at NRC are truly astounding in their revelations.
Can't wait until he is turfed out.
Have you ever noticed that when a new government takes power, it very rarely reverses the stupid policies and shameful legislation perpetrated by the previous one? Politicians beat their breasts and flap their gums endlessly about their predecessors' mistakes, but once in power they seldom rectify them. So yes, it'll be a great day when Harper is given the bum's rush he so richly deserves; but we'll still be stuck with all the regressive, secretive, power-mongering, privacy-raping, freedom-destroying, corporation-fellating dictatorial BS legislation that dear Stephen is so busily ramming down our throats.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Without knowing the chain they went through with NASA, it isn't really fair to compare the two experiences.
Let's ignore the fact that the journalist decided to call the NRC at the very last minute for a bit of extra information, and look at what happened in the communication internally at the NRC.
The NRC media arm was called, and unless the person at NRC in charge of that initial contact happens to know EXACTLY who to ask, there will invariably a flurry of back and forth communication internally, just as you see in the article.
When you look through the emails (btw, I hate it when you are given a data dump like that - it's close to impossible to figure out where one email ends and another begins), you find that the original call is on March 1st at 09:30
At 11:39 Manya Chadwick has an answer to the journalist, that needs to be signed off on.
That's after 2 hours and 9 minutes. Over email. In my book that's a fantastic turn-around time. Keep in mind that it is extremely unlikely that the involved parties are ignoring everything else on their plate.
Then at 14:03, Jonathan Ward has signed off on the text. That's 2 hours 24 minutes later. Again, for email, that's a fantastic turn-around time.
And at 15:10 Tom Spears is sent his initial answer. That's 6 hours, 12 minutes.
At 16:38 Tom Spears is given an extra update to the lines, pointing out that the NRC forgot to credit their partner CSA.
At 09:47 on March 2nd Tom Spears writes back: "Thanks, but when NRC won't speak to me I can't guarantee to write the story the way you want it.". (Seriously? Less than an hour after he gets his answer, they send a tiny update because THEY MADE A MISTAKE, and he decides to be snarky like that?)
The reporter didn't even bother to write back with a follow-up question or anything after he received the answer (only a "RECEIVED" message at 15:42). He didn't bother to ask if he could call someone or get a quick callback for anything.
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Let's go back to the question asked (technically no question is asked):
Now - since he's talking to Media Relations, he's obviously not going to be directly transferred to someone with intimate knowledge. That's just extremely unlikely to happen, unless (as I mentioned before) the person at NRC in charge of that initial contact happens to know EXACTLY who to ask.
The inquiry, as it's written, is more along the lines of "I'd just like to get a feel for NRC's involvement in the project" (a question that is answered in the mail he received) than "Why do you want to study snow?", as the journalist says the hoped-for interview would have asked.
My question is - what hoped-for interview? The initial inquiry was for information on NRC's involvement.
Now - considering that he received the initial answer at 15:10, there would have been PLENTY of time for him to spend five minutes to compose an email along the lines of:
But no. Aparently it is not in a journalist's scope of work to ask followup questions. Or at least not Mr. Tom Spears's type of journalism. I mean - imagine the extra work it would take him to add those extra 243 characters to his email. I mean - that's almost two entire Twitter messages! The horror.
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So - what about the NASA thing?
Note that "We phoned a NASA scie
It's worse than that.
The current government in Canada has threatened any scientist that talks to the media with censure. If they say anything that's "outside message", they lose their funding.
Too many links to list, here's a google search.
The message is "there are no environmental concerns in Canada."
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Let them publish some real findings in a peer reviewed paper, then they can do what they like.
No, they can't. Read the links provided. One of them is for a Canadian scientist whose work was published in Nature (not some bullshit 'social-science' journal). Reporters were interested. Some of her findings were politically uncomfortable for the ruling party. The government muzzled her totally for over half a year. Left so long, the story cooled down, and the reporters were no longer interested.
I know this will be labeled as a troll. But honestly, fuck off with your socialist propaganda bullshit.
Well SOMEONE is trapped in the right-wing authoritarian mindset...
Ordinarily there's little point in replying to an AC, but someone condescended to give you a mod point, so what the hell.
The idea that filtering news stories through political filters is to protect Canadians from bad information and those self centered, socialist scientists is, in a word, crap.
The Harper government has made it very clear - explicitly, actually, in government directives - that scientists who receive federal funding are not to the talk to the media without approval. This has been widely reported. They have cracked down hardest on environmental scientists (can't admit that companies are causing damage in the oil sands, shipping dangerous asbestos products, or damaging fisheries) and statisticians (you don't need data when you already know what policies you want to implement.) I'm sure you can think of other countries that have required their scientists to seek government approval before speaking.
It's a travesty, and one that any self respecting scientist sees for what it is - political manipulation to serve a cause that is neither left nor right wing, but corporatist and self-serving. Of course, you would realize this if you if you were actually a scientist.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
That's not oil, its high-pressure asphalt, "liquified" with added solvent, but the pipeline is designed for lower pressure oil, and they want to run it alongside the fastest-flowing river in British Columbia, since the Kalamazoo was too sluggish to promote a truly world-class catastrophe. Canada is aiming to take their rightful place in the headlines.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I'm a scientist who works for NRC. I'm not allowed to talk about my research to the media without permission and if the permission does come, it's never on time. I can't even give a scientific presentation without "managers" needing to read over it first. The media now knows this and is starting to look elsewhere for their scientific content.
The worst part about this whole story in the original post is that the communications department at NRC is funded (in part) by the research money that researchers bring in (government overhead is a big chunk of a research budget), yet clearly this is not serving the researchers well.