Canada discovered Kryptonite first!

In all the excitement of the recent announcement about the discovery of Kryptonite, the Ottawa Citizen reported that a communications snafu in the Canadian government prevented them from releasing a media release at the same time as the British Museum, which subsequently got all the credit.

Apparently, everyone had good intentions of doing joint releases before the Privy Council Office (PRC) quashed the release from the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) because the PRC needs five days to approve anything. The British Museum's release went out and the world's media picked up the story and the NRC was left to kick its heels for five days before it could announce anything, by which time the world's media had moved on.

This is a positioned as a problem with the PRC but to my mind someone in the NRC should be asking their communications group some hard questions. They must have known the rules so someone in the NRC must have slipped up. In my experience, effective communicators in government, as with any large bureaucracy, know all the rules and the approval cycles and how to get things done. They don't just throw things out there.
Tim

The picture of Kryptonite was taken by Orbital Joe.feed