Media Relations Training for Chancellor's Cabinet

According to the June/July Chancellor's Cabinet Highlights ("a publication of the Contra Costa Community College District Chancellor's Office to Employees of the District"), a full day's retreat next month will provide the cabinet members along with the vice presidents with media relations training.

Certainly the relationship with the local media vis-a-vis the district's grades-for-pay scandal has been problematic. While most of what the chancellor and the DVC college president has done has been to stonewall media inquiries (often in the reasonable stance of wanting to avoid compromising legal processes) or react to media reports, we've also seen bursts of responses: an estimated $6000 ad in the Contra Costa Times proclaiming the district's better efforts, its wobbly affirmation of the state accreditation's announcement that accreditation itself has not yet been withdrawn, and most memorably the interim college president's calling of a news conference last spring--without inviting or informing the Inquirer, the college's own newspaper.

We'd ask that board members be invited as well. We have already suffered the embarassment of Tony Gordon's dismissal of the importance of this matter ("Many things have happened (at community colleges) that are more important [than the grades-for-pay scandal] but have not been looked at by the Legislature"). And John Nejedly's personal and legal and workplace issues represent a tremendous public relations problem for the leadership of the district.