Snyder confuses public relations with public health solutions

By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
(This commentary originally appeared in Domemagazine.com). LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder remains under heavy fire for the amount of time it took for him to become publicly concerned with Flint’s escalating unsafe water crisis and to act decisively on those concerns. But the governor is certainly making up for lost time – if you measure concern by the number of press releases flooding from his office. That deluge of pronouncements, announcements, advisories and denouncements reflects a misperception that better PR is – if not a solution to the poisoning of a city– at least a priority deflection of too-slow-to-act criticisms and of the unfavorable and unwelcome international media attention the crisis continues to draw. By my rough tally, for example, his office issued 11 press releases and advisories between Feb.