VERITAS: TOUCHDOWN - MILLER GETS MAJOR PLAY FOR SURPLUS ANNOUNCEMENT

This week's perspective from Bob Reid:

The speculation was running at fever pitch on Tuesday night, after Mayor David Miller’s office put out a media advisory serving notice of a major announcement by his worship set for Wednesday morning – one of sufficient gravity that details on parking locations for TV live trucks and cabling were included. Beyond that, no one was talking as to the specific nature of the announcement, and that’s what sent all manner of pundits and commentators into overdrive. Theories ranged from an early departure by Miller from the mayor’s office for a U.N. posting to a shocking about-face plunge into the race for re-election. However, as we all know, it was an unanticipated windfall of an extra $100 million in surplus revenue on the year just ended. Now, as usual, we’ll set aside the politics and the policy and look at the communications, particularly the howls by some in the media that they had been somehow hoodwinked by the mayor’s office vis a vis the scope of the big news announcement. Bunk, I say. Miller’s office neither leaked anything nor initiated any speculation about the mayor’s future or anything else that the pending announcement didn’t turn out to be. The media were self-starters in that regard. $100 million in extra money for a supposedly cash-strapped city IS big news – and by suggesting that TV outlets might want to cover it live (without disclosing what “it” was in advance), Miller Communications Director Don Wanagas ensured that the story got tremendous play. There was no deception here, merely a carefully controlled flow of information that achieved a desired result – whether breathless commentators liked the actual substance or not.