When is an Announcement not an Announcement?

(Aired on June 25, 2010)

It must be really challenging to write press releases for the provincial government - especially if you're boss is Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid.  This week, for example, we received a release touting over $600,000 was spent to buy our local school district five new state-of-the-art cleaner burning diesel school buses.  But talking to district officials gives you a little bit of a different story.

You see, every year the district evaluates its buses to see if they are too old and too used.  For example, if a bus meets a certain mileage criteria, it has to go.  This year, five buses expired.  So in essence, the government did exactly what it had to do.  The government was obligated to replace the old buses.  Hardly something worth crowing over.  Not only that, the buses are in no way cleaner running than any other new buses out there.  They are diesel buses that simply comply with current emissions standards.

It's nothing new, of course.  The provincial government regularly trumps up mundane obligations as if it is saving the world.  It also routinely re-announces funding that has previously been committed, trying to fool those of us in the media who don't pay attention.  Sometimes it works.

And the tricks worked for some in the media this time, too.  The first dead giveaway that there was something fishy here should have been the mere fact that it's funding for education.  We should all be skeptical when that's announced.