A retired Edmonton journalist was under consideration for a permanent job with the Notley government when she was appointed by the province to write a report on who should be allowed into government news conferences.

The government confirmed Wednesday former Canadian Press western bureau chief Heather Boyd was hired as director of media planning April 13, calling into question the independence of the review she submitted last month, according to the opposition.

On Feb. 16, the government announced it had appointed Boyd to review its media policy and provide recommendations to the premier’s office after right-wing news outlet The Rebel said it was planning on suing the province for barring its reporters from news conferences.

Undisclosed at the time was that Boyd had already applied for the director position.

The newly created director’s job was posted Jan. 26 and closed Feb. 15. It comes with a salary of $120,000 annually.

Chris McPherson, spokesman with the Public Affairs Bureau, said Boyd’s work for the government on its media policy had no bearing on her being hired for the director job.

He said she was hired based on her 30 years’ experience with The Canadian Press wire service, as well as her holding a master of business administration.

Boyd, a former city editor at the Journal, was hired in an open, country-wide competition. It is a “public service position,” in which she’ll be working almost entirely with other public servants, he said.

Boyd will be responsible for supervising the Public Affairs Bureau’s media monitoring team and for “quality assurance of the government’s public communications and for mentoring departmental staff when it comes to writing and editing,” McPherson said.

However, Wildrose critic Jason Nixon said the appointment “smells funny.”

“It takes a report that the government spent a lot of money on and makes the whole thing suspect, and that’s just disappointing for Albertans,” Nixon said.

Nixon said the fact Boyd was hired “right after she made a report of that magnitude” destroys its credibility.

His party has been questioning the government on its political hires for months, after the NDP recruited a swath of ministry staffers from outside Alberta.

Boyd’s appointment is another example of concerning government choices when it comes to bulking up its offices, he said, particularly when it’s “someone who was supposed to be doing something independent a few weeks earlier.”

Boyd’s media policy review concluded the government should remove itself from decisions about accreditation and instead leave the issue to the legislature’s press gallery.

“This protects government from the perception of bias,” Boyd wrote in her report.

With files from James Wood and Emma Graney

oellwand@postmedia.com

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