Warren Kinsella writes today about the ongoing feud between the press and Stephen Harper, wherein Harper has limited access and put restrictions on questioning. Kinsella notes that it isn't just The Toronto Star sniping, but guys like Don Martin of the right-leaning National Post who are fed up with Harper's 'disdain' for the press. He quotes Richard Brennan, new president of the Ottawa Press Gallery, as saying:
"There's not a lot we can do, except push back, and that's what he is going to find," said Brennan. "We are pushing back."Kinsella gives all rounds up to this point to Harper, saying that "the Prime Minister has beaten the national media at every turn. They have been forced to play the game by his rules." But goes on to say:
Sometime soon, the Prime Minister is going to find the news media "pushing back" at a time when he is most vulnerable. Namely, during the election campaign.
Already, it is arguable that this push-back campaign is producing dividends: However much Harper moves to the centre, offering up big-spending policies for latte-sipping urbanites and ruthlessly muzzling the red-necked crazies in his backbench--he gets no credit for it. He and his party remain ahead of the Liberals, marginally, but they are also far from their lusted-after majority. So they lick their wounds, and wonder why.
So, rather than reporting the news fairly and accurately, the president of the Ottawa Press Gallery seems to be advocating that the media selectively report, thereby attempting to shape the opinons of the nation, rather than do what they are supposed to do, inform the nation and allow us to form our own opinions.
This concept is coming from the guy the OPG chose to represent them -- Instead of just sucking it up and giving us the news, he'd rather the press gallery 'push back,' and it would seem as Kinsella notes, they'll use 'omission' as a tactic.
How is it that the head guy believes that OPG's petty grievances are more important than their responsibility to Canadians to tell things as they are? Do they think that they are somehow 'representing' us up there in that rarefied world of Ottawa bars and backrooms -- especially when they decide they're going to play kingmaker if the PMO won't play ball their way?
Is there any wonder why Harper doesn't trust them?
canadianna
20 comments:
Nobody likes a dictator.
start thinking for yourself cons.
oh little lamb, may i kiss your wounds.
How does "pushing back" equate with "selectively report, thereby attempting to shape the opinons of the nation"?
The way I read it and observe it, up until fairly recently, the media have been giving Harper and the Conservatives a pretty easy ride. They ask a question, he avoids an answer and they go and print his press releases.
By "pushing back", it seems to me all he means is that they are going to start doing their job now, and aggressively pursue their leads and questions, rather than let the PMO bully them around and regurgitate CPC talking points as news.
Harper can try to avoid accountability and transparency all he wants, but as we saw with the 200 page memo on how to circumvent Parliament and the reporting of that memo, the press have been bullied long enough and they aren't going to continue to give him an easy ride.
Imagine, members of the press gallery that actually do some investigative reporting. We haven't seen that in a while!
Frankly, from what I've seen most of the current press gallery crowd wouldn't know what to do if they didn't have talking points and notes for remarks to crib from.
Totally agree!!What WK is saying is that during an election the PG will be doing all they can to present the CPC in a bad light.As payback. Canadians deserve better!!
SHAME ON Richard Brennan and thanks to WK for bringing this to Canadians attention.
The CPC will get what the Liberals got in the last two elections: coverage of the news of the real stories that happen to shed a bad light on them, coverage of the good news always coupled with the opposition's counter-argument, and they won't feel the need to jump every time the CPC has a correction or response to an opposition point.
They did it to the Liberals so there is no reason to suspect they aren't also capable of doing it to the CPC.
"The way I read it and observe it, up until fairly recently, the media have been giving Harper and the Conservatives a pretty easy ride. They ask a question, he avoids an answer and they go and print his press releases."
How is this any better than suddenly becoming vindictive against the current government?
If you view if from Canadianna's point, they were doing okay and then decided to actively turn on the government. If you view is from Cerberus, it's a lousy press corps who suddenly does their job.
Therefore, the OPC either admits that they've been doing a lousy job so far, or that they are about to do so.
Either way, they look like partisan hacks. That's a politician's job, not a journalist's.
Who cares what Kinsella says? He's a Liberal and a spotlight hungry media hog. The Liberals aren't in power anymore so he must find a way to stay in the "elite circle". A little suck-holing and ass kissing to the PPG can't hurt right?
There is absolutely no reason for Harper to change tactics with the press. Journalists are low life scumbags that make personal injury lawyers look like paragons of virtue. The press always love to circle the wagons and present a unified front when they are criticized. (Take note how they never seriously criticize each other).
**BUT** in actual fact these low-lifes will sell their grandmothers to get exclusive information. Al Harper has to do is continue by-passing the PPG in favor of other journalists.
Personally, I can't wait for the battle to begin. Cell phone cameras, pen digital recorders, YOUtube and blogs make powerful weapons. I can't wait to record some dickhead joutrnalist in a drunken, loudmouth moment in the bar making an off-color or ethnic joke. Then woo-hoo! on it goes to Youtube, to the appropriate ethnic association, to human rights, to the editors of the paper to the paper's advertisers, ect ect.
This is going to be fun!! Payback is a bitch scumbags.
I wouldn't go so far as to call these people 'scumbags'. They're trying to do their jobs and, with that, also trying to protect their turf. Like anyone else would do.
It's a tough feeling when one realizes one's occupation is slowly becoming inconsequential.
However, I agree that Harper should keep at it. In this day, politicians are able to circumvent the media to get their message out. Fred Thompson is experimenting with this phenomenon right now in the States. Harper would do wise to not worry so much as to what the press thinks, and take himself directly to voters.
"What WK is saying is that during an election the PG will be doing all they can to present the CPC in a bad light."
....what about their professionalism as journalists???? Oh silly me....wake up. :-)
Don Martin/Greg Weston/Jane Taber/Julie Ven Deusen....the new Brat Pack
cerberus - did you even read the Kinsella piece? The part where it says: It's already happening . . . Kinsella has taken the pov that any Conservative achievements have been ignored. That's a Liberal saying it. And, if 'pushing back' means doing their jobs, like both bob in Ottawa and rob said, what the heck have they been doing all along?
anony-mouse 3 -- capable of doing it to the CPC Gee, you think?
Haper's battle isn't with ALL the media, just most of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
From what I can tell, during the next election campaign, Harper will be giving most of his interviews to local media. Harper may not allow ANY reporters on his campaing plane. But if he does then each reporter will be charged a HUGE sum of money.
The rules for reporters on the next campaign will be very different. And they will ALL be to Harper's advantage. He's right to keep playing hardball with these guys, the same way he plays hardball with the OFFICIAL opposition--the LPC.
There's no quid pro quo here either between Harper and the media. Harper could become another Mother Theresa, and the press would still savage him, probably even more so.
Kinsella is playing silly games here, issuing empty threats.
" And, if 'pushing back' means doing their jobs, like both bob in Ottawa and rob said, what the heck have they been doing all along?"
Instead of their jobs, they've been doing Sandra Muckler's job... or at least the job of her assistant.
Harper bailed out on his 5th and only truly important "priority", but other than Paul Wells who is talking about that in the media? Harper came out running in September with his "Four Pillars" but has anyone in the media done their job and asked him how he's doing on that front? The Conservatives are trying to ram a major constitutional change down our throats without addressing any of the many significant problems with their drafting and their proposal, it may not even be constitutional, but do you hear anything in the press? No. Before the Conservatives came out with their negative ad campaign trying to define Dion as "not a leader", how many of them wondered about Dion's leadership? None. And after? They are just content to regurgitate CPC talking points. Has made their job easier.
Yes, the "push back" has started, finally, and the media is now saying they many not cave in to Harper or Muckler when they evade a question or instead of standing up for their own record (or lack thereof) blaming the Liberals for their own incompetence.
The media including Kinsella and others truly don't understand that their role is to report the news and let us form our own opinions, not to distort it with their own biases.
Larry Zolf freely admits that the media sway election according to their own agenda.
"Harper�s treatment of the media is that of an ingrate. The media made Harper. The media also first made Trudeau and Mulroney. Later, the media made both Trudeau and Mulroney and their parties suffer at the polls.
A similar fate awaits Harper if he doesn�t change his basic suspicion and hatred of reporters and news commentators. "
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20060328.html
Here's some advice to Kinsella and his dishonest buddies:
Know your role or shut your hole.
"Later, the media made both Trudeau and Mulroney and their parties suffer at the polls.
A similar fate awaits Harper if he doesn�t change his basic suspicion and hatred of reporters and news commentators. "
THAT was before the internet. Now conservatives can fight back. Innuendo can be a powerful weapon if it's directed at the right people. How much innuendo would it take to get *ANY* given journalist's friends and coworkers whispering? Hmmm? I think I'll find out.
P.S. (!)WHEN(!) Did the MSM EVER do a number on Trudeau ? - - - OH Please!
What stands out to me is Warren Kinsella saying:
"they are also far from their lusted-after majority.
I'm sure the conservatives want a majority--any party would. But these kind of comments make it sound like winning a majority is their singular purpose although, there is no evidence of that being the case.
words like "lusted" are used to give the reader the impression of wrong doing.
That's priceless. If the PM doesn't cuddle up to the press, the press threatens to flush their integrity down the toilette. That'll hurt the PM!
cerberus -- all I can gather that you're trying to say is that the press has been lazy, and now they're not going to be.
It isn't the job of the PMs press secretary, or anyone else for that matter, to tell them what's a story or to give them flesh for the bones. It isn't Muckler's job to offer up the Conservative failings on a plate. If the press sees short-comings, by all means, write. How is that pushing back? If the Conservatives don't answer a direct question -- fine, write it. How is that pushing back?
If they put blame on the Liberals any they are just as or more culpable for a problem and the press knows this, let them tell -- how is that pushing back? That's called reporting, and silly me, I thought they were already doing that.
Don't blame Harper if the press is stupid enough to fall for distractions. They dozed all through Chretien's time, wakened for a little with Martin, if they're going back to sleep it's on them, not Harper or his press-secretary.
I think you've failed to read between the lines on this one. Brennan wasn't saying they were going to chase down stories, or press for answers -- he said that Harper has a pathological hatred of the press, and that the press isn't going to stand for it. Now, if he simply meant they were going to start doing their jobs well, why state the obvious?
The difference between Ottawa now and Ottawa two, three and five years ago is not that Harper makes them use a list or limits access --it's that Harper, his press secretary and those 'in the know' aren't sitting around with the press corps, sucking back a few pops at a local watering hole. The press is missing their special time. They were spoiled by the former Ottawa movers and shakers into thinking that they we're loved and that they actually shared part of the power -- the new reality of no schmoozing is stark and startling and has bruised their ego. They don't know who they are anymore. It's so sad I could weep for them.
The press have a not so hidden agenda.
"the new reality of no schmoozing is stark and startling and has bruised their ego. They don't know who they are anymore. It's so sad I could weep for them."
Brilliant.
I particularly liked the whining from the press that went to Af'stan about not getting invited along to the front lines.
DUH! Like getting the PM there and back safely wasn't a big enough security issue, they should take the whole friggin' entourage?
And this, after Fife asks (or almost tells) the PM if the reason for the trip was because of dropping in the polls? Memo to Bob: If you want to ask insulting questions of the PM, maybe save them for the END of the trip, not the beginning, you twit. Why on earth would PMSH want to do him any favours after that?
anon @ 4:37 pm...that's rich.
Do you mean the OPG made up the stories of Libs saying stupid stuff?..Like "Harper will stop abortions" and "Harper will have soldiers on our streets, with guns, we aren't making this up".
Yeah...that was the bad news about the Libs, right?...hillarious!
Bottom line...Harper has every reason not to trust MSM, and they are ticked that they aren't 'controlling' the news.
Right from WK's keyboard, we just had it confirmed.
OPG is useless.
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