We are all familiar with the White House spin room where public opinion is manipulated to favour a specific or particular party.
“Edward Bernays, called the ‘Father of Spin’, who helped tobacco and alcohol companies make certain behaviour more acceptable, would be extremely proud of the Mogale City Local Municipality,” says the Councillor of Ward 21, Lynn Pannall.
The continuous water disruptions of the past ten weeks that have shaken communities in Mogale City, have been more unpalatable or “undrinkable” because of the extensive spin with which our municipality has approached the crisis.
“Delaying the release of bad news or ‘burying bad news’ is a major technique of spin. For ten weeks the municipality has procrastinated and glossed over the real cause of the water crisis. Each day a ‘new’ story emerge. It has disguised the facts, avoided questions from residents and ward councillors, shifted the blame and selectively cherry-picked information for public release to bolster its own ‘blamelessness’.”
Remarkably it also has denied a lack of communication during the crisis.
Using spin, therefore, is a way of shirking responsibility and accountability and of washing one’s hands of the problem.
“But we are all aware of an elephant in the room, which unfortunately, the municipality perceives as a mouse! My plea is for the municipality to keep the community informed at all times and to be as transparent and clear as the high-quality water, which should flow through the pipelines to our residents’ homes,” ends Pannall.
