It happened in the city of Manta, at the end of July 2015. Uncomfortable because of the question about the reddish color of the Burro River, which passes through the most important port and summer resort in Manabi, and from which unpleasant odors spread, the mayor at the time, Jorge Zambrano, through the journalists who interviewed him, sent the citizens to “eat flowers” in order not to it smelled.

The failed attempt to ironize such a sensitive environmental topic was summed up in the mayor’s sentence, which he later justified as referential, not figurative: “The bad odors of waste water are the product of excrement that we, as human beings, throw into our homes every day. If we want it to smell good, then we eat the flowers.”

Guayaquil, March 23, 2023, around noon. At the Citizen Security Corporation, outgoing Mayor Cynthia Viteri speaks to reporters eager to learn about palliatives for the flooding the city has woken up to that has already recurred with or without rain, due to climate change and waste being thrown down the drain. , as she repeated in the explanation. At the end, Viteri suggested to the journalists in a cheerful tone that they “swim away” back to their media, that is, to their homes. The phrase quickly became a buzzword.

The Communication Council led a technical round table for evaluating attacks on journalists

‘This is similar to what happened to us in 1982 and 1998; It is such a big and strong event that it can be repeated from tonight to Saturday,’ says Cynthia Viteri

Listening to it reminded me of eating flowers to make a donkey’s river smell and the countless failed moments of irony starring politicians who don’t quite agree with the fact that this resource is not good for all of them, nor is it applicable to all topics. Except when many of the citizens they serve, even in the last days of their administration, woke up with water up to their knees and desperate because the artifacts, the product of their efforts, were being spoiled before their eyes by the water that rose and rose in the middle of a winter storm that was eternal to them .

Both ingredients, time and empathy, were missing. Just as absent was its recipient: common sense.

He time, which means time management in Spanish, is a key part of effective and coherent communication. Empathy, another fundamental part, is equally valid for those who, at the request of those flooded or intoxicated by the bad smell, gave their vote for the official to be in the command chair of the cities in the described cases.

both ingredients, time and empathy, they were missing. Just as absent was its recipient: common sense. And it’s so easy to apply them: don’t laugh when it comes to another’s loss and suffering; put yourself in the shoes of the other to understand the dimension of what is happening in their small world, where the damage to the refrigerator due to his engine getting wet becomes a family disaster, due to his cramped economic reality.

Public dignitaries and officials, and occasionally private ones, should know this when time It is communicative, the attitude and the message must be aligned with the other’s sensitivity to the problem. Many times this can fall into the habit of saying only what others want to hear; but even that which sails in deceit might be even less harmful than misused irony. (OR)