From CBC:
“Veterans Affairs tightens social
media vetting after Nazi gaffe in VE-Day video”
Veterans Affairs has reviewed how
it approves videos for posting on social media "to ensure rigour and
accountability," following an embarrassing incident last May that saw
Minister Lawrence MacAulay apologize for a Second World War tribute that
"erroneously" included footage of German, not Canadian soldiers. Documents
obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act show multiple staff,
including managers, copied on messages to review scripts, share drafts and
offer feedback during the vetting process for several commemorative videos
produced last spring. But none of the bureaucrats on the email chain managed to
spot the difference between Nazi and Canadian uniforms in the video
commemorating Victory in Europe Day (VE-Day). "While the existing
approvals process is sound, it was not properly applied in this case,
ultimately contributing to the error," concluded a briefing prepared for
the department's deputy minister (and a former chief of the defence staff)
Walter Natynczyk. "Staff deeply regret
the error," it continued. "They see this as an opportunity to review
and re-establish internal roles and responsibilities." CBC News reported
on the video bungling on May 9, after sharp-eyed history buffs who saw the
video on the department's Twitter account noticed footage of Nazi soldiers laid
over the minister's tribute to Canada's war effort. The eagle on the uniforms, the shape of the
helmets, the cut of the uniforms: Anyone familiar with the imagery of the
Second World War could identify several shots early in the video that were not
Canadian soldiers or their Allies, but the German soldiers they were fighting. Someone
in the department saw posts talking about the Nazi images and a manager quickly
had the video deleted from Facebook and Twitter. "Folks, apologies for the
late evening note," reads an email from Natynczyk sent to seven staff at
10:17 p.m. "There seems to be some angst within [Minister MacAulay's
office] about D-Day historical footage on our site."
'A completely unacceptable
mistake'
By the next morning, Conservative
MP Michael Barrett was chirping that "Liberals marked VE-Day by thanking
Nazis for their sacrifice." MacAulay apologized in the House of Commons. "This
was a completely unacceptable mistake and the video was removed
immediately," the minister told question period. "I and the people
involved are very concerned, and we are taking steps to make sure this does not
happen again." Emails released to CBC News show officials scrambling to do
that. By May 14, Natynczyk had signed off on a new approvals process and more
staff training. Ministerial videos for posting on Facebook or Twitter are now
vetted in two stages. First, draft videos need to pass by two team leaders, two
other managers, a "divisional fact-check," the director of public
affairs and a senior director of "strat-digital." Then there's a
"formal approvals" process, which includes two director generals, the
deputy minister's office — which is a new step, the document notes — and the
minister's office. A flow chart laying out the six-step approvals process for
communications products and media responses was included. The documents show
many of these steps were in place already. This screw-up was not the work of
some untrained intern going rogue on social media — quite the opposite.
Fact-check missing
"We followed the process for
the video scripts, however, missed some formal steps in our haste to film,
produce and post the VE-Day video," Sarah Brown, the acting director
general of communications, wrote the morning after. "That's where we will
tighten going forward." "Some steps were missed in the case of the
final video," Natynczyk's office was briefed, "most notably the
fact-check review by the Commemoration Division." The 42-second tribute
featured MacAulay speaking on camera as well as publicly available archival
footage sourced from the YouTube channel of Library and Archives Canada,
according to the briefing. "The big push for these always is good B-roll
over minister," MacAulay's press secretary, Alex Wellstead, wrote to
departmental staff, as he requested six videos last April. "You're all
super awesome and so great, and I truly, madly, deeply appreciate everything
you do." The documents show the team settling on only four commemorative
videos to mark different occasions, including VE-Day, the anniversary of the
surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945. On May 6, a link to a draft VE-Day
video was provided to several managers, leading up to its May 8 deadline for
posting. "Looks good!" the manager of the communications division
replied.
'A learning opportunity'
In some respects, the approval
process was thorough. "At the :16 mark, the closed caption is off-script
by one word," another vetter on the email chain noted. But while staff
went back and forth with a number of critiques — things like saying
"service members" instead of "soldiers" for a more
inclusive script, or adding a call to action at the end, for viewers to, among
other things, "share why remembrance is important to you on social
media" — no one seems to have flagged the Nazi uniforms. The department
met its deadline to produce the video, and prodded John Embury, MacAulay's
director of communications, for his final approval early on the morning of May
8. "Approved," he replied. Later that afternoon, a senior
communications editor at the department also signed off: "The videos sent
earlier have been QC'ed. Nothing to flag," she wrote. By May 10, the
investigation had zeroed in on where things went sideways. "Just found out
the footage in question was of German prisoners of war captured by Canadians.
Taken from a Canadian Army newsreel," Embury wrote his colleagues. "I
like the initiative, but without context..." Going forward, managers vowed
that "the right questions will be asked at sign off ... No
assumptions." "Staff regret the error and felt disappointed,"
another email said. "This was a learning opportunity."
^ It’s nice to see that no one at
Veterans Affairs is being held accountable for the video even though there were
several different people who were in charge of it and one of them should have
caught the mistake. Maybe Veterans Affairs did the video on purpose (to either
praise the fighting Germans – and not the fighting Canadians – or to bring
attention to their department.) Maybe the people at Veterans Affairs just didn’t
know the difference between a Nazi soldier and a Canadian soldier. Not matter what the reason the those that
created and those that approved the video should not be working in the same
positions. ^
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