A Jim Travers op-ed in the Star considers the underlying sloth of the Ottawa press gallery;
In diminishing the effectiveness of his press interactions, the Prime Minister is indirectly encouraging reporters to fan out to look elsewhere for news, a radical notion that’s not in his interest and will lead to scrutiny no administration can sustain.
Reporters actually going out to get the news? This cannot stand!
So, there we have it – tacit admission by a leading Ottawa journalist that the majority of his peers have behaved as lazy, spoon-fed agents of the Liberal party. One would think that such a revelation would be worthy of a column of journalistic self-examination, or at least a direct acknowledgment that accusations of pro-Liberal bias have foundation. Instead, he predictably issues yet another “warning” from media to the Harper government.
When we speak of “newspaper recycling”, Mr. Travers, we’re really thinking of the paper, not the ink.
Let’s get the real reason for this little squabble out into the open. The shrill cries from the press gallery for “accountability”, the invocation of “American-style” motives in keeping cabinet ministers and government officials on a short leash, the faux alarm about “secrecy” are complete and utter hogwash. What we are witnessing is a media suffering through loss. Harper’s changes mean the opportunity to practice the bread-and-butter of modern political reporting – the fine art of “gotcha journalism” – has been cruelly snatched from them.
At the moment, most seem to stuck somewhere between “anger” and “bargaining”, May they move to the stage of “acceptance” soon, and get back to the real business of reporting.
Postscript::
I can’t let the column in question go by without drawing attention to how Travers signals his personal viewpoint on a different score. (And I don’t mean just the predictable cheap shot attempts to paint Harper as ” reading from the George W. Bush script”.)
…a social shift away from universal programs and toward what is euphemistically called “choice.”
The word “choice” is not considered a “euphanism” when it comes to the question of abortion policy – so, why does Travers attempt to discredit choice when the issue is child care or health care?
The Other Sites of Interest – Autres Sites D’Int�r�t section of the Links page on the Press Gallery’s website could use a little updating. It still lists the Canadian Alliance and the PC Party of Canada. It does not list the Conservative Party of Canada.
http://www.gallery-tribune.ca/links.html
Rather along the lines of the point Kate is making, don’t you think?
Mark
Ottawa
Kate, I find it amusing that you are complaining about “gotcha journalism” when your entire post is taking two sentences from an entire article and proclaiming “Gotcha”!!!
If you take a moment to actually think about what Travers wrote, you will realize that he has a point. The national media send national correspondants to Ottawa to cover the national government. If the national government refuses to leave the prewritten and well known script, then the media will have to go out and dig for dirt. If this really does happen, I all but guarantee that your party will regret it. Just like the Martin message attacking Harper, it will stop getting reported.
Jason Cherniak: And you yourself illustrate the “Gotcha!” problem. Digging for news does not necessarily mean digging for dirt–though it seems to for Mr Travers and much of our MSM.
Just look at the MSM’s appalling laziness in failing to investigate and analyze the Canadian Forces’ change of mission in Afstan over a period of some seven months.
Mark
Ottawa
Jason, perhaps you overlooked the link I provided to the original, so that readers may judge for themselves. There is plenty of evidence, including statements from dissenting mainstream journalists, to indicate that the Harper government has been at least, if not more, forthcoming than the previous one when sharing information.
This blog post, in fact, is precisely the opposite of “gotcha” journalism, in which a statement is sometimes dishonestly extracted (have you stopped beating your wife?), excised from context, often enhanced by a misleading headline and then framed with editorial commentary. Or, if context is supplied, it doesn’t appear until 7 or 8 paragraphs down.
But why must I explain this to you?
Jason Cherniak: see: “Afstan update: about four months late”
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/006094.html
Mark
Ottawa
Jason Cherniak: What I take from the words in your own entry (which echoes a statement made by Travers), you are saying (in essence and as an analogy) that if you don’t feed the PPG pablum, they’ll have to go find some solid food. So, it would seem that we are all agreed that the PPG is happy to be spoon-fed pablum…which suggests that they are lazy (as Kate has been alluding) and NOT digging for the truth (which is what they say is the value of the media that the Conservatives so-called silence is killing).
Can’t you see the hypocracy? Put together what Travers said with what Zolf (and others) have said and you begin to see the whole picture that the contributers to this site have been saying all along…the media were NOT keeping the Lieberals honest and were, in essence, manipulating the voters through their reporting methods to achieve their desired political goals.
I don’t know why you folks read the Star in the first place. You must certainly realize it’s political position isn’t going to change…ever. I find it amusing to hear conservatives bitch about it’s support of the LPC.Surprise, surprise.
Yet, the same ranting lunatics who cry partisanship at the Star, regularily cite the Toronto Sun to support various conservative positions. Come on, let’s be fair. At least liberals know what a biased piece of crap the Sun is and generally avoid it.
I don’t know why you folks read the Star in the first place. You must certainly realize it’s political position isn’t going to change…ever. I find it amusing to hear conservatives bitch about it’s support of the LPC.Surprise, surprise.
Yet, the same ranting lunatics who cry partisanship at the Star, regularily cite the Toronto Sun to support various conservative positions. Come on, let’s be fair. At least liberals know what a biased piece of crap the Sun is and generally avoid it.
For people who don’t pay attention to the MSM, and especially think there are more important things to discuss than the PPG’s issues with the new government – you sure are discussing them a whole lot.
Who says we don’t pay attention to the MSM? You’d have to be a hermit or functionally illiterate to avoid them if you’re at all interested in political commentary, which all of us on this blog are–well, nearly all of us.
There’s a difference between paying attention to them and AGREEING WITH THEM. I pay a lot of attention to the MSM, because how else can I effectively or meaningfully critique what they’re saying? That’s what burns my butt and so many others’: that we have to daily be subjected to the BS of the MSM, and then find ourselves writing to their outlets at the CBC, CTV, Toronto Star, G & M (depending on the journalist), etc. to call them to account for their slovenly and sloppy reporting, which sometimes tips over into outright lies and misrepresentation.
It’s almost a full-time job and in the case of the CBC, which is funded by the tax payer, it’s frustrating as heck because that organization seems to think that it is above being either questioned or accountable.
Who do we contact in the CPC to ask that the CBC either be scrapped or substantially pruned?
People who follow politics *certainly have* been paying attention to what the media is about.
Political panel discussions, with media being the only guests, is more common than televising the full speech of the government, so that we can hear for ourselves what was said, in context.
CPAC has helped that to some extent, but they are falling to using panels more and more.
The internet and blogs started to congeal like-minded folks; before that, we had no real way to intrude into the columnists’ viewpoints.
Surely, a few letters to the editors doesn’t count for much.
Now we hear the media complain because of the changes in how information is being dispensed to the public.
E-mail updates with the full content of speeches and reaching out to local tv networks, around the Ottawa gang is being tried by the PMO.
Media outside of Ottawa is being given a chance to participate in news from their capital…what could be wrong with that approach?
We respond to whatever arouses our curiosity around anything political, and the huff and puff of the Ottawa media certainly has aroused our curiosity…..
It is important to feel assured that what we read in the papers, or hear on the other media, is the full truth, not some token pull-out.
Our interest in this dust-up is part of wanting to be assured that those ‘pull-outs’ are fair and balanced.
*We* will decide if it is or is not, with *all* of the available information…we love information and focusing on why that bit of information became the prime pick.
Aye…there’s the rub.
The CBC is in the domain of the CPC government now. They are the ones you should complain to.
As for the rest of the MSM, or the Corporate Media (CM), I am not here to defend them. I think they are just as lazy and overfed as y’all say. But I don’t buy into the whole “let’s band together to bring down western civilization” conspiracy that I read about here. And since media are ratings driven, you starve the beast by tuning it out.
(And in the “lazy and overfed” category I include both liberal and conservative pudits who do nothing but peddle talking points.)
Mr. Travers replied to my email criticizing his latest column by telling me he is a columnist, not a reporter and therefore his column represents his views on the events of the day. So I guess Travers because he is a columnist can say anything he wants no matter how distorted it is while a reporter needs to report the news which in turn contains only biased words i.e. Bush lite, American style etc. so that the public is led to a certain conclusion of what that reporters thinks. Me thinks the lines of communication have been blurred in the MSM between news reporting and op-eds.
Mr. Travers replied to my email criticizing his latest column by telling me he is a columnist, not a reporter and therefore his column represents his views on the events of the day. So I guess Travers because he is a columnist can say anything he wants no matter how distorted it is while a reporter needs to report the news which in turn contains only biased words i.e. Bush lite, American style etc. so that the public is led to a certain conclusion of what that reporters thinks. Me thinks the lines of communication have been blurred in the MSM between news reporting and op-eds.
Harper is dividing and conquering with the MSM. Bob Fife already split from the pack, essentially calling Julie Van Dusen a loudmouth who should shut up yesterday on CTV’s Question Period. Craig Oliver was on Fife’s side, Shameless Jane of the Globe & Wail was on the whiners’ side, but it’s funny to see these self-important know-nothings chew each other up.
Those on Fife’s side will do their job and give the people what they want when they tune in: THE NEWS. Those on the whining side will be frozen out and will be unable to do their job. If their bosses weren’t partisan Lib hacks, they would be fired.
Who wants to bet: Bob Fife gets the next one-on-one with the PM.
What does “euphanism” mean? Is that even a word?