By James Peters

City defends web page aimed at correcting local media outlets

Jan 3, 2019 | 3:04 PM

KAMLOOPS — The communications manager for the City of Kamloops says she doesn’t want to see an adversarial relationship between city hall and local media — despite launching a web page dedicated to correcting media mistakes.

Wendy Heshka says a page on kamloops.ca called ‘For The Record’ has been live for about six months.

A description on the page notes it is meant as a place to “clarify inaccurate communication” when the city finds an error in “a media story, social media post, letter to the editor, or other communication channel.”

“Sometimes, on occasion, a point will be a little bit misconstrued or maybe a number might be out of whack or some fact needs to be corrected,” said Heshka. “We would use this page in those instances, just to put out the correct information or clarify something that was misunderstood.”

Heshka says corrections have been published on For The Record twice since it launched, and were taken down after the originating media organization published its own correction.

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Relationships between news media and North American governments have become more strained in recent years, especially as U.S. President Donald Trump has declared war on what he calls “fake news.”

In Ontario, the Doug Ford government launched its own faux news network to convey the government’s messaging unchecked.

Heshka says the city does make a practice of contacting news organizations directly to discuss potential errors.

“We have a lot of partners who help us communicate the city’s messages. Communicating accurate information and transparent information can be challenging in an environment where information is very, very fast-paced,” said Heshka.

Heshka describes the public corrections and clarifications strategy as best practice for municipal communications, and says city hall is not trying to criticize the work of local journalists.

“I would hope not. Absolutely not. We value all of our media relationships and value the hard work that journalists in this city and this province do, and we know it’s a very, very difficult job,” said Heshka.