Hydro, how not to spin

For the third straight year, Manitoba Hydro is set to post another huge profit. Good for them. They recently released third quarter results showing a profit of $217 million and the headline writers at CBC find a way to put a negative spin on the story. Maybe they got confused and were looking at their own bottom line but I’m not sure how posting a multi-million dollar profit especially in these economic times warrants a negative headline. Now the CBC is not the only one to blame here. They were just following the lead of hydro who put out this release. And what a dumb release it was. In his wisdom, Glen Schneider decides to state in the first paragraph of what should be a completely positive release that his company’s profit was fractionally smaller than last year’s and then goes on to explain the reasons. Why is that in there at all? And nowhere does he mention that they are projecting a much higher than anticipated year-end profit. I had to find that out from the Sun, who were the able to put the full story together. Now Glen, share the bad news when you actually have some bad news. When you post a nice tidy profit don’t shoot yourself in the foot by talking about inconsequential minutia that distract media from the positive story.