Idle No More: Spin Doctors Need Not Apply

Before we discuss whether Idle No More should have a spin doctor, let’s establish what a spin doctor is and what a spin doctor does.  A spin doctor’s job is to take the facts and rework them to create a perceived favorable interpretation of events to the media even if it’s a smoke-and-mirrors interpretation and not very factual.   A spin doctor’s job is to weave a spin doctor web to snare all his media victims in … one that ensures that  the major players in mainstream media interpret an event from the specific point of view the group wants mainstream media to have, even if it isn’t accurate.

Over the past few months, more than a few people in mainstream media have hollered that Idle No More feels disorganized to them.  Some have even claimed that it’s been losing momentum over the past 9 months.   And there have even been some who have said that Idle No More is trying to be all things to all people while at the same time claiming that the Idle No More movement has been co-opted by every fringe group looking for media attention.

Here’s the thing.  The Idle No More movement doesn’t feel the need to tell people what to think.  The Idle No More movement is about education and awareness, and from there, people will make their own minds up without being told by spin doctors and mainstream media what to think.

This doesn’t mean that attention from mainstream media isn’t appreciated.  It is, and all the more when it comes without someone else’s spin on things.  We like our news organic, not processed till the cows come home and pre-packaged, just add news celebrity and stir up.

Just like processed foods are heavy on sweeteners, salts, artificial flavors, factory-created fats, colorings, chemicals that alter texture, and preservatives., so are processed news stories that carry with them a “Best Before” expiry date when the story just doesn’t matter to the media anymore.  Yes, processed news stories come with their sweeteners (the reporter with the microphone who’s aesthetically pleasing to the viewers’ eyes) and salts (the worst part of the story that can be rubbed into people’s wound to make them hurt more), factory-created fats (the spin doctor webs) and colorings (the spin doctor point of view), chemicals (those would be ‘made up facts’ that are really just distorted points of view intended to sway the public in one direction or the other) and preservatives (how long can the media run with this story before it doesn’t get the big viewer numbers any more).

And just like doctors and health experts tell you all the time, go natural, you should apply that to your news consumption habits.  Go natural.

The next time someone tells you that the Idle No More movement is dead in the water, be glad that person thinks it is.   That way of thinking opens the door to presenting them with the facts so they can educate themselves and make a decision that isn’t influenced by fakery and puffery and those grandiose sleights of hand that spin doctors are paid handsomely to create for other people, groups, corporations, organizations, and politicians.

Without the spin doctors around to make the movement out to be populated by dime store Indians handing out wooden nickels, we stand a far greater chance of changing the world for the better by laying out the facts for all to see and interpret without a spin doctor’s filter layered over top.

When all is said and done, and the smoke has cleared, you’ll see that no spin doctors need apply to be part of the Idle No More movement.  It’s doing very well all on its own, at the grassroots level, with the involvement of those who understand what’s at stake.  Don’t despair.  Just because you hear from spin doctors that the Idle No More movement is on its last legs, doesn’t mean it’s so.  It’s far more likely that those spin doctors are working to create that specific image because the people they represent are afraid that their point of view is the farthest thing possible from the truth.

Elyse Bruce