Is the B.C. government feeding us too much good news?

KAMLOOPS — It’s not hard to find fault with the BC Liberals on a lot of stuff but I think there’s one thing on which we can all agree — their PR machine is first-rate.

The slightest hint of anything that could be called good news for the government instantly turns into a media release or a full-scale media conference, or both, complete with photos, video, speeches, a ribbon-cutting and one of those ever-present “Putting British Columbians First” podium signs with slogans about “Modernizing” and “Building” and “Connecting” and “Partnering” and “Inspiring” and “Engaging” and “Supporting.”

The flacks must work over-time Googling synonyms; there must be warehouses full of those signs.

There are important announcements, to be sure, about fighting drug addictions and reviewing auto insurance rates and building really big stuff like hospital additions — and the more important it is, the more press releases are issued about the same thing. After all, if a good story is worth telling once, why not tell it twice, or three times, or four?

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Editors hard-pressed for content get a helping hand, too. If, for example, there’s a media release headlined “New program helps first-time homebuyers in Kamloops,” you know there will be another one headlined “New program helps first-time homebuyers in Prince George” and another about Penticton, and about…” well, wherever. Just copy and paste, news people!

Nothing big or small escapes the eagle eyes and ready pens of the Liberals’ good-news train. A grant, a contract or award, a word changed on an agricultural food label and, you bet it’s worth a press release.

Some people say it’s too much, it’s all political, a waste of time and money. Humbug and all that.

Well, I say, I’ll take this over-zealous, exaggerated, hyperbolized fixation with telling us way too much, over the alternative. I say, bring it on. Feed me. If I’m not interested in what the government is doing about a given thing on a given day, I can ignore it.

But I’ll take too much information over too little, every time.