A reader has asked a very good question – is there a list anywhere of the names of the members of the Ottawa press gallery who walked out on the Harper news conference on Darfur?
I’d appreciate the information, if someone has it to send along or drop into the comments section. The media demands transparency from politicians – Canadians should expect no less from them.
Let’s have the names, and those of their employers.
While we’re on the topic – 75% of callers in an informal poll on John Gormley Live this morning disagreed with the host and believe Harper should tell the OPG to go pound sand. I think the word “crybaby” came up multiple times. The very public pity party the media are holding for each other may be backfiring.
Stephen Taylor;
As I’ve noted before, the press gallery has evolved past its primary role of reporting the news to dictating how the Prime Minister should disseminate information via reporters to the electorate. The Prime Minister refuses to relinquish control over his communications strategy to an unelected and unaccountable body which he has now deemed biased and frankly, that’s his prerogative.
He suggests the Ottawa Press Gallery has more to fear from their impending obsolescence than they do a PM who won’t play by rules designed for a communications age that has long passed them by.
G&M poll
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accused the national media of being biased against him, do you agree?
Yes (57%) 17477 votes
h/t Hans Rupprecht in the comments.
I have a corollary question. What are the names of the reporters upon whom Harper could allegedly rely to ask “softball” questions under the proposed system of the PMO picking reporters from a list? Is there a conservative fifth column (no pun intended) in the parliamentary press gallery?
“Is there a conservative fifth column (no pun intended) in the parliamentary press gallery?”
Occam, if there is he or she’s a pearl among swine.
I read somewhere that the Star was NOT one of the ones who left..I went to Kinsella’s blogroll to check Zerb to see if that was where I read it, but I see she has been removed. (They have been having a spat about circulation of the Post and the Star) Even his “musings” about the subject have been deleted.
These petulant Liberals!!!!
Stephan should just start blackberrying everyone when he has something to say. Then we can see reporters huddled together in the coffee shop, furiously blackberrying back. Harper can then screen unwanted questions, and reply to those that serve his purpose.
Kinsella removes his posts for a reason – it preserves the mythology that he’s a pundit of unusual ability.
If he left his musings up for posterity, everyone would soon realize that his record is no better than mine (or anyone else off the street), when it comes to accurate political analysis and predictions…
The funny thing oc,is that the picking has more to do with staying on topic and fair reporting than it does with partisan questioning and favouritism.The prime minister gives,i think detailed and thoughtful answers to the questions presented,but when it is a plain fact that the gallery has no interest in your answers,that is a different ballgame.
When the press gallery designates itself the official opposition,all bets are off as far as i’m concerned.These people never gave a fair shake to PMSH and did their best to support their true best friends,the Liberals ,in any way they could.
The whole idea of PM Harper being “scary” would not have found so much traction if it had not been for the compliance of the media in spreading and supporting that message…
I really have no sympathy for these overpaid gossip columnists,and perhaps if left out of the loop long enough,they will find their true calling.Perhaps they would be best suited to ambulance chasing or true! crime reporting…just as reprehensible and just as believable as anything they have done before!
On a tangential but related note, the G-G has decided that she also won’t be attending the annual Press Gallery Dinner.
Apparently besides the G-G and PM Harper, there’s also a growing number of other notables not planning to attend.
It’s starting to look like the only Press Gallery Dinner attendees will be the “journalists”. No doubt, they’ll stand around, cocktails in hand, congratulating each other for their “progressive thinking” and “grasp of nuance”. (IMO, this is another dose of badly needed Humility Therapy for the MSM. 🙂
There’s an informative article about this at the CTV website, under News, Top Stories. It’s entitled “Gov. Gen. skipping next Press Gallery dinner”
OC,actually,I would also like to know what criteria was used for choosing(or not)questions.I believe Harper to be an honest man(at least as much as ANY politician can afford to be)but I would suspect that he and any of his staff would tend to have a bias,that’s human nature.
But is the PPG complaint about what question is ignored,if any,or which journalist is ignored in this new format?I would guess the latter as some PPG members themselves have stated that Harper’s answers tend to be direct,and he answers more questions than the previous government.
To give the majority who walked some credit,they are finally wearing their bias openly on their sleeves instead of slyly slipping it into their news items.
As I express these views,I hear Harper announcing his new law to hopefully curb street racing tragedies,what a relief to here these continuing pro-active announcements directly from the source,not an interpretted view.
I’m all for making this the status quo!
No idea who was there that left, but there is a website you could direct your questions to… CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY PRESS GALLERY.
Everything the PPG says about Harper will now be seen though the prism of this dispute, i.e., the motive of the particular reporter will now be questioned, however slightly. Harper is not suffering from the same disability simply by virtue of the fact that it isn’t his job to comment on the press. I suspect you’ll find he limits further comment on the dispute. The seed is planted – “the press hates Harper”. This was the strategic goal of this whole affair. Well played, I might add.
I think we are seeing a pattern of behavior with the new government… If it needs changing…Starve it to death.
The long gun registry, sorry no more money… Starve!
The Parliamentary Press Gallery, sorry no more information… Starve!
I think PMSH’s strategy may prove to be his best move yet as far as media relations are concerned. Just imagine being one of the smaller local TV stations or radio programs and are able to tell your audience “The Prime Minister is coming to our little corner of the world for a visit” The PM is seen as more accessible and friendly and is able to get his message out on his own terms. Brilliant!
Everyone loves to think that their leader is just like them. That was always part of Jean Chretiens charm(?), he held himself out as the “little guy from Shawinagin” PMSH may come across as more approachable and even develop a media personality in the process.
I remember hearing an interview after the election with some guy who runs a racetrack in Ontario. He has said to Stephen Harper “Give me a call from the Prime Ministers office”. PMSH did and said that he would keep his other promises as well. Why did that stick in my mind, because PMSH made a point of reaching out to a regular guy.
I am thinking that this whole strategy with the PPG is a well thought out stategy by the PM and his advisors
Starve them out!
Daniel
Paul Who? is rumoured to be the guest speaker at the PPG’s dinner next. As Zolf says: Me and Oliver Magoo want a seat in the Senate. More:
“This year’s dinner was live on CPAC.” (2003)
…
The worst thing you can do at a Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner is not be funny. Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc Queébécois leader in the House, was absent from the dinner. Jack Layton, though not an MP, was given a chance to speak.
Layton was totally humourless. His speech was painfully banal, his performance so threadbare that the master of ceremonies got a big laugh when he suggested that Layton should have stayed home like Duceppe did.
I had a certain sympathy for Layton. He’s still not a member of the Ottawa political club and really doesn’t know how to make fun of it, or himself. Perhaps he was bored. Who knows? Perhaps Layton secretly thinks the whole press gallery dinner approach isn’t really relevant.
Pierre Trudeau despised the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner, hated the press and attended only under duress. Many times he failed to show up to speak, cancelling at the last minute.
In 1973, I was asked to write Trudeau’s press gallery dinner speech. He was in minority government, propped up by David Lewis’s NDP. The dinner was very important to Trudeau and his staff.
Conservative leader Bob Stanfield had already gotten a big laugh when he said about the 1972 Trudeau-Lewis pact of survival: “Who in this dynamic duo is the monkey? Who is the organ grinder?”
I told Trudeau that the Stanfield line could be turned. At the ’73 dinner, Trudeau, my speech in hand, began by telling the press that he was now “a poor starving minority prime minister” and had no time to hold press conferences anymore. The gallery members hissed and booed at this pronouncement.
Then he said, “After all, be reasonable, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not easy being an organ grinder. (big laugh.) I have to take organ grinder lessons five days a week.” (really big laugh.)
Then: “It’s not easy being an organ grinder. Have you ever tried to feed a banana to a monkey while a power-hungry Stanfield is waiting in the wings?” A huge laugh ensued. Stanfield, with only two seats fewer than Trudeau, was famous for eating bananas on camera while under political fire. Now he’d been hoist with his own banana peel.
That speech helped Trudeau to mend his fences with the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He had laughed at himself and put his arrogance away, at least for a while. I thought of that speech while watching MacKay perform.
The Parliamentary Press Gallery dinners are important events. They change attitudes and perspective in Ottawa. They make the press like you, or not. They count.
So for anybody who needs a good speech for the next one – are you listening, Paul Martin? – I’d just like to say: Will work for Senate seat. …
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20030617.html
The PPG are media. They are not the media. The Ottawa PPG consider themselves the BSD’s of the press corps and suffer from an over inflated view of their own public image. They think they are movie stars. I offer the Mike Duffy commercial proferred on “Newsnet” as exhibit one in this regard.
Journalists have no idea that a good chunk of the public regard them as vain, self-centered, and untrustworthy. This is why Harper’s little spat with them isn’t hurting him.
They just don’t get it.
Hey Kate,
Did the Press Gallery have any plans to walk out under the previous government?
They say that there WAS favoritism and / or punishment under the Liberal government — but would NOT walk out on the Prime Minister Martin. Under a conservative government that hasn’t shown this favoritism / punishment — there hasn’t been any time for it or examples cited by the press of it — they walk out. Odd isn’t it
Trouble_in_BC
Best Comment: entry no.3,678. …
.. or just make it a Liberal leadershit contest preview by letting all 12 candidates make idiots of themselves while the press applaud and adulate their new masters.
And a star guest appearance by Jacko Layton and his SO … Olivia Oyl Chow …. !!!!!!!
voyforums
Subject: Bring in Micheal Moore
Author:
a PPG favourite
bks:
The Zerb is still listed on Kinsella’s blogroll; he’s just renamed the link.
Click on: “Bilious Anti-Warren Harridan”. That’s the link to the Zerb blog.
Kate, you know as well as I do that callers to John Gormley are *always* overwhelmingly conservative. It’s like saying 4 out of 5 dentists warn against sugar — hardly surprising.
I agree — I’d like the list of names that walked out and their employers. I want to commend the people that refuse to be put on a list by the PMO and ‘allowed’ to ask a question of the PM when any journalist worth their pen would refuse that.
So strange that the media covering this, all report the Ottawa press gallery walked out, but nobody bothered to note “who” walked.
Of course if CBC members did this, we would get our money back…
Is the media closing rank over this?
I want the names of the reporters who stayed to watch Harper read his statement and not answer questions. Surely they have better things to do.
I Can’t wait for the PPG to get back to work! I
miss their thoughful Questions
Do You Love Canada?
What’s with that shaking your kids hand stuff?
Do You love your Mother?
Do you have Milk with your coffee? Oh sorry I asked that last time….. do you have sugar with your coffee?
Do you love your Dog?
Do you watch Canadian Idol?
Were’s the Doughnuts?…
Glad to see them Gone….
Might not be easy to get a complete list.
Here’s why:
Many left the building entirely and used the subsequent transcripts and tape to do stories about the Darfur announcement.
Some hovered close enough so they could listen in, and come back to ask a question if the PM decided to hold a news conference.
Some remained in the building and watched the event on TV.
And about three reporters and a couple of camerapeople didn’t move.
and which 3 or 5 ?
nobody knows anything.
uff
here’s the complete list…
http://www.gallery-tribune.ca/members.html
I find the left -lib, socalist portion of the media, (majority)have not only stopped listening to the Joe & Janes of this Nation. They activly revile them. As some ignorant mass, that has less intellegence than a weasel in heat.
It goes far to exlain there distain for the public. That & there collusion with the Liberal Government, while Canada was being burnt & abused by these Socialists.The media agree’s with the Liberals “beer & popcorn mentality & where solid members of the Culture of entitlement.
Any conservative voices had to use radio & the Internet to get there message across. Except the Sun chain. Which has been denigrated by the Socialists as tabliod rags. Laughed at .
Who’s laughing now? The Sun chain is beating out the regular broad sheets. Why? Because they have reporters who will say a duck is a duck, not a lump of coal.
To the left leaning press this must resemble the Catholic church when it was at the hight of power, & controlled all information . It was its monks & monastaries that hand printed books & they controlled the ones they wanted put out.That is, they did till the printing press.
That put the kibosh on there control, & opened up a new era of communication. With new & old ideas now avalable to any who could read. It precipitated enormious social changes as we are all well aware of today.
So today the press is slow to understand just how revolutionary the Web has become. All people have a voice & there using it. The smart journalists have gained, by embracing the new technologies of information. I see there at least experiancing a golden age. The fact there mostly Conservative teaches us, who are the real inovaters.
Michelle Malkin , Mark Styne, & many others have conned onto the new realitries & have thrived. As an example of one dino, I sujest you read his article & see just how he does not get it.
Greg Weston: These are the mild ones …
http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Weston_Greg/2006/05/25/1596517.html
They (lib-left reporters & PPG) happly enlisted onto the Lib-Left army of decite. Hiding high crimes & theft. Leaves one to wonder what the pay off was?
Bob Fife – CTV said he stayed.
Ha! It looks good on ’em. And more’s the pity for that bunch of jackasses. While we are heaping scorn, let’s not forget Jane Tabor…Gawd.
Craig Oliver… gag… Robert Fife is walking a fine line these days… and the rest of the gaggle… Who misses ’em?
WE don’t, the public..the taxpayer..the electorate.. The PM is required to report to US. They have proven over and over again that they get in the way and are intent on spinning any message they don’t like to suit themselves and their ‘hidden agenda’ !
As for Warren Kinsella?? He is great in his own mind only… think about it..anybody who remains a Chretien supporter and apologist? … who listens to him or reads him besides HIM??
Kate has it all over most and she does this for a hobby! Which proves you do not have to have a journalism degree to be a darn fine reporter, blogger, opinion writer or whatever catagory you want to name. Kate is just downright good.
Warren is more than likely eating his heart out, at least he should be.
Notice that the PPG isn’t just an ad hoc group of reporters; it has a voted executive. There are rules, there is an executive, there is a hierarchy.
Kursk – your comments say it all perfectly. The difference between the Conservative govt, its PM and Ministers – and the Liberals is astonishing. They answer questions. Remember how Martin and his ministers never, ever, answered a question? All they did was spout empty vapid rhetoric. If you asked them anything – the answer was along lines such as “Our ministers are doing all in their power to assist Canadians and we must rest assured that they Love Canada’. It was all empty nonsense.
For the first time in decades, we are getting reasonable, thought-out, clear answers. Incredible.
The PPG, as Harper points out, have set themselves up, not as journalists, with a duty and responsibility to supply the people with information. They aren’t interested in information. They have assumed a task, as Harper said, of OPPOSITION.
Their opposition includes continuous contempt and ad hominem derision, name-calling of him and his wife. That is journalism?? When he announces a policy, they report it with derision, with selective bits and pieces that don’t provide the policy in its truth. The opposition’s role is to act as ‘What If We Took A Different View’. That’s its duty. The PPG has taken on this role, and has stopped providing us, the public, with information.
And, I suspect that because they have assumed this role, they and their Executive, are quite affronted that Harper is treating them as if they were ‘delivering information’. That, the PPG feels, is beneath them. Their role is To Oppose Whatever Harper Says.
Anyone who calls the press gallery Liberal lapdogs has either scored smoke stellar smoke, or is willfully disingenuous.
Let’s examine the three reasons the Liberals lost the election.
1) The sponsorship scandal.
2) The income trust scandal.
3) Paul Martin’s weak leadership.
Guess who broke all the stories about the sponsorship scandal? It wasn’t the Bloc Quebecois. It was the Globe and Mail — and like a dog with a bone, the media followed that story through Sheila Fraser’s two subsequent audits, and the Gomery commission.
And then when Gomery reported, there was an election call. Which led to:
2) Blanket coverage between late December and early January of the income-trust scandal. (Then when that story got old, the press moved onto the Liberal “mole” story instead of covering their campaign promises.
3) And finally, the media wrote Paul Martin’s obituary as a failed leader repeatedly — and especially in the last campaign.
So all the complete load of horsesh– about them being lapdogs for 13 years, and about them picking on poor little Stephen Harper all of a sudden, is puke-inducing bilge.
They walked out on him the other day because his staff have gone out of their way for two months to antagonize and treat them like crap (like spreading rumours and lies about individual reporters on Parliament Hill, like threatening journalists, like making their alleged laziness an official PMO talking point, like cutting off points of access that have existed for a half-century, like repeatedly lying to their faces). Why? A theory is emerging that they actually WANT journalists writing stories about this, so that people would see any future critical coverage of the PM as a settling of accounts. So instead of saying, “What a crummy policy,” people will conclude, “Oh, look at these awful media people picking on poor Stephen again,” anytime they see a negative story.
It might be smart politics, but it’s cynical, mean-spirited, dishonest, and has just needlessly pissed off 300 reporters.
But do me just one favour: spare us the Liberal “lapdog” crap.
WE DEMAND TRANSPARENCY:
Well now that the Parliamentary Press Gallery has, like the Emperor, no clothes; one can posit the proposition that we have all the transparency we can possibly stand.
Quick find the PPG something other than see thru clothing!!! They are really not THAT attractive.
Given the polls by CTassV and the Mop & Pail in respect of bias; the PPG will just have to give up their editorializing opinion pieces masquerading as reporting. Guess what? IT IS THE PUBLIC ELECTORATE that decides who is “FIT FOR OFFICE”.
When the public wants more editorializing we’ll let you know. Has the MSM PPG checked their circulation numbers lately?
For any doubt as to whether there is media bias try the ctv website:
Do you think the national media gives Conservative prime ministers a tougher time than Liberal ones?
Yes
8974 votes (54 %)
No
5185 votes (31 %)
About the same
2334 votes (14 %)
Total Votes: 16493
To add your vote:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate
Gee, I wonder if the sample size is significant enough for Liberal apologists?
In other news Skilling and Lay of Enron infamy are both found guilty. Conspiracy and wire charges come with a maximum of 30 years.
Will our own governmental fraud artists ever do that much time?
From the Mop and Pail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/poll/pollResultHub?id=40779&pollid=40779&answerid=&poll=GAMFront&save=_save&show_vote_always=no&hub=Front&subhub=VoteResult
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accused the national media of being biased against him, do you agree?
Yes
17477 votes (57%) 17477 votes
No
12962 votes (43%) 12962 votes
Total votes: 30439
ET
You get the kupeee doll of the day. (O:}Nice post.
Just heard Greg Weston on the increasingly annoying Charles Adler show. The two of them kept droning on and on (and on) about how they are receiving e-mails from the general public accusing them of whining, vis a vis the PPG/Harper issue. Well, if it wasn’t for all of their whining, they might have had a point.
An hour earlier on the Rutherford Show, there was a PPG member spewing the same “how dare Harper not kneel in our presence”. Rutherford tried to point out the glaring double standard: Harper can’t call out reporters names from his list, but the PPG should be free to use thier list??? WTF?
This is the frightening part. Of course the government of the day will want to call a press conference to communicate thier position on a particular matter, announce new policy, etc. And of course there will be a certain degree of partisan spin injected into these media ops. (That’s the advantage of being on the winning side at election time!) The very fact the PPG compiles their own list implies that the press meets before hand to discuss what questions they are going to hammer the government on. Are they reporting the news or creating it by attempting to set the agenda? Slippery slope, methinks.
Bunch of whiners. (read: screw you Adler) Nice to see that the “mom & pop” small market media outlets (and blogs I hope!) will be the ones getting the scoops from now on.
Let the Craig Olivers, Adlers and Westons of the world stamp thier feet and stand there arms folded and pouting. I prefer to look at it as the quintessent paradigm shift, which leaves the MSM to lead, follow or get out of the way.
They missed the whole “blog thing” by writing it off as “a bunch of conservatives in pj’s” or “it will never catch on”. I doubt they will turn around, tail between thier legs, begging Harper for a second chance. Oh sure, they will further politicize this, throwing all kinds of “facist”, “American-like” and “mean-spirited” slogans at Harper, but with the cast and crew of the PPG made up with a bunch of thin-skinned Katie Couric/Wolf Blitzer wannabes with serious “entitlement issues”, @$%& ’em all, I say.
I get all the news I need by loading up Nealenews and checkings Kate’s latest here at ‘Dead Critters every morning (and several times a day) that I don’t need conventional radio/print/tv nor thie prima donnas.
I think the press has a right and obligation to be as independent as they can be. It is enough that the politican,whomever it may be, has control over the timing ,content and place of a news briefing without trying to gain further control of the process by controlling who,if and when someone speaks.
I want the media to have as much freedom as possible because everything is filtered through them. If you start putting restrictions on them over and above the time, place and content, then the government had better make certain its press releases are absolutely clear and precise, with no false,adverse or otherwise negative interpretations possible. If not, then you hand over your news releases to people angry at you and take whatever they feel like they want to give you in terms of a fair reporting.
I am not one of those who assumes that the Harper government is having a nice holiday with voters in spite of the press. All my information comes through the MSM.I am no Tory, but I can tell you that the message to date that I have been picking up through the MSM has been more positive than negative. It would be more than a little naive to assume that you can maintain good ratings by fighting with the messengers whom you need to deliver your messanges. Unless you think that your messages are delivered more appropriately through gritted teeth. It seems to me someone in government should take a Media Relations 101 course, and soon.
Having worked and lived in Ottawa and watched the National Media, I can say without hesitation;
Most of them are CRAP and should be treated as such by all of us. Spoiled little brats.
tony, I think you’ll have to substantiate your allegations. Otherwise – they are – nothing.
Please substantiate:
‘rumours and lies’
‘threatening journalists’
‘cutting off points of access that have existed for half a century’ [So What??? Because something WAS, doesn’t mean it ALWAYS MUST BE)
‘alleged laziness’
Provide some hard facts and not just gossip.
And, again, it is not the duty of the PPG to oppose. Their duty is to inform the public. They choose to oppose rather than inform.
You refer to a few journalists who broke the sponsorship story. What about the rest who did nothing?
I don’t think that your three reasons are sufficient for why the Liberals lost the election. Your reasons refer only to two scandals and one poor leader.
What about the fact that the Liberals had no policies, and the laws they were putting in place were strictly and only for votes? SSM? What about that? That was for the latte crowd vote. The gun registry? What about that? That was for feminists. What abouto their use of the softwood lumber as a tactic of anti-Americanism, for anti-Americanism has been a key political strategy of the Liberals. What about the fact that they didn’t inform and educate the public about softwood, about Kyoto, about the gun registry, about SSM?
What about Martin’s lies to the people, informing them the SSM was a ‘charter right’, when it isn’t? What about all the people in the Liberal gov’t who are living ‘high on the hog’ off the taxpayer? Radwanski and his bankruptcy and his high living life? Gagliano? Dingwall? Pettigrew?
What about Harper’s clear and basic ‘back to the roots’ agendda? Couldn’t it be possible, not merely that the Liberals LOST, because of ALL and MORE of the above reasons, but that Harper and the CPC WON THE ELECTION? Why? Because they are talking to and with the people. They aren’t acting like a bunch of elite mandarins, beyond the reach of the law, who refuse to answer questions.
The Liberals NEVER, answered questions. In the house, or outside. All they did was pontificate and spout empty meaningless jargon (Love Canada; Canada is the greatest, and other empty talk).
Harper won the election because of his policies. The Liberals lost the election because they have no policies. Their only agenda, ever, has been to maintain power. They have done this by lies, by manipulation, by vote-buying.
We are tired of that. We wanted an honest government. And, for the first time in many decades, that’s exactly what we have.
“Let’s examine the three reasons the Liberals lost the election.
1) The sponsorship scandal.
2) The income trust scandal.
3) Paul Martin’s weak leadership”
Well,finally someone says the Liberal’s are corrupt and have/had a poor leader.
But Tony,i think the press went way too easy on the Liberal’s at the height of the adscam scandal.On Duffy and Newman’s shows they were actually talking about what the Liberal’s should to too stay in power and win the next election.Think about it,a government in power has just been caught stealing millions illegally and the press gallery explains how and why they should stay in power.
And now i see no mention in the media of Guite’s trial where people have testified they feared for there lives from people involved in adscam,including the Liberal’s.
Other examples:
Martin/Stronach defection.Brilliant politics.
Harper/Emerson defection.Immorally wrong.
And the most glaring example occurred during the most recent election.CBC ran a nightly program called Reality Check about the Conservative election planks.
Why no reality check about the Liberals or Dippers?
Tony said “It might be smart politics, but it’s cynical, mean-spirited, dishonest, and has just needlessly pissed off 300 reporters.”
Haha, deal with it.
steved: “I want the media to have as much freedom as possible because everything is filtered through them”
The trouble is, steve, the media doesn’t always “filter” everything. With regards to the Ottaw media, more often than not they are not “filtering” but injecting thier own “additives” into the crankcase:
Mr. Harper, do you love Canada?
Why don’t you hug your kids?
How scary?
Hiddden agenda!
American-like!
Coffins!
Grieving Widows!
Do those of us who back PMSH’s position in this feel that he should at times have to answer very uncomfortable questions from the media? Or never?
Would be this the same media that loved the term the “whinecellar” when Stockwell Day chose to use a room deisgned for press conferences?
Would this be the same media that booed that same leader when he was in the opposition.
Would this be the same group that never forgot which way certain rivers run. (Probably, the extent of their knowledge about geography, other than that there are bastards on the south side of same river.)
Thought so!
CRB
ET:
“You refer to a few journalists who broke the sponsorship story. What about the rest who did nothing?”
ET, the journalists who broke that story won a national newspaper award for superior reporting. Despite what you think, it’s not every day that someone in government comes around and blows the whistle on theft of taxpayers’ money for partisan purposes.
Your question is like asking, why didn’t the ENTIRE team score 50 goals? A couple of journalists at the Globe and Mail did, and everyone else road their coat-tails. They gathered angry opposition reaction, they grilled the government, they hunted down Chuck Guite down at his ranch, a pack of journalists chased him down a street in Montreal’s Chinatown once, they did the same to Gagliano in Denmark, they did the same thing to Jean Chretien once, they staffed the Gomery commission from beginning to end and left themselves understaffed on Parliament Hill, where they cover the actual business of government.
So spare me this crap about journalists letting the Liberals off the hook.
The Globe and Mail owned that scandal. The rest of the press gallery and the Bloc Quebecois feasted off their award-winning work for years.
As for the allegations earlier, I’m sorry. I’d love to provide more detail but it will have to end there for now.
“Of course if CBC members did this, we would get our money back…”
what . . . . is the strike over ???
… Layton, on left wing, passes it off to Weston, on left wing; it’s over to Conacher; he shoots… Shapiro estops the promises. CBC Hockey Night archives 1948. …
Lobby group: Tories broke promises
OTTAWA (CP) – The lobby group Democracy Watch has launched a formal complaint with the federal ethics commissioner accusing the Conservative government of breaking election promises.
The same letter of complaint also repeats Democracy Watch’s call for ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro to resign for failing to vigorously enforce ethics rules.
Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch says Bill C-2 – the federal Accountability Act – breaks or omits 13 specific promises made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the run-up to the Jan. 23 vote.
Included on Conacher’s list were Tory promises to require ministers to record all contacts with lobbyists, to protect all whistleblowers, to promptly disclose whistleblower complaints, to close conflict loopholes for ministers and to allow the public to launch ethics complaints.
Conacher says the new Accountability Act also deletes from the ethics code a clause requiring politicians, their staff and senior public servants to “act with honesty.”
The complaint names Harper, Treasury Board President John Baird and Harper’s communications director Sandra Buckler for “being dishonest about broken election promises.” via cnews
“Guess who broke all the stories about the sponsorship scandal? It wasn’t the Bloc Quebecois. It was the Globe and Mail”
Big deal!
After thirteen years of Liberal Government corruption the leftist MSM finally realize they have been enablers of the corruption and begin to pursue the rot.
The internet had overtaken the gatekeeping enablers and the Ottawa Press gallery.
The the former heads of Enron have been convicted of fraud and given stiff prison sentences in the U.S, why are Canadian MSM media still silent on the issue of the malfeasance and corruption of the former Liberal leaders of a Canadian Government?
Instead they smoke screen on Harper!
The Ottawa Press gallery has much soul searching to do to regain any relevance with the Canadian citizenry.
Steve D.
Perhaps you should take the media relations course instead.
If Steve D. decides to hold a press conference to announce something important, if Steve going to just sit back and let someone else control the press conference?
If I’m having a press conference, I or someone on my staff will be selecting who asks the questions.
Seems pretty straightforward.
Tony,
I don’t base my assessment of bias in the media on recent events so much as the past few years. The national media absolutely crucified Stockwell Day as Alliance leader, and tried to do the same to Harper in the run up to the 04 election. Harper is scary. Harper will ban abortion. Harper will turn Canada into the 51st state, etc. All of these myths were created and inflated by national media. Keith Boag, Neil McDonald, Jane Taber, many others, they all deliberately misrepresented Conservative policy positions on social issues and gave the Liberals a free ride. When did you hear a national reporter question Liberal members on abortion? Never in my memory. The national media, and especially the CBC, has kept up a steady drip of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-Conservative sentiment for years.
The sponsorship scandal was too big for them to ignore, but if it had been smaller, you can bet they would have done. As they did with other Liberal scandals, leaving it to bloggers and independents to break many of them.
I’m surprised you don’t get this. Warren Kinsella gets it, and indeed he predicted the very situation we see now some time before the last election. Warren said that after Boag and others’ reporting on the Conservatives they shouldn’t expect to get their calls returned by the new PMO. And Warren isn’t a Tory, last time I checked. But he does know media pretty well.
Robert — You had better plan on not getting many journalists to cover your press conference then. If they can’t get you to answer their questions, why should they show up? Instead they’ll just take your fax and report that. Like it was said beforehand, if there’s no way to question, what’s the point in being there?
According to the over 250 comments in the g&m, 70% agree with Harper. One can find out the biases of newspapers just try posting a very positive comment on Harper on any topic. The NP has had a comment section re the positive polls for Harper and as of this a.m. not one comment posted, good or bad. How many besides myself have tried. Yrs ago I followed a cbc camera crew around a mall, after being questioned on the signing of the Charter of Rights (I was against it) Not one negative man in the street comment made the news, although the majority I followed were against it. I was polled by Decima during Mannings run, and every question I answered supported him. I was told Manning was not an option for an answer, he was not listed. Poll come out=manning and reform register 0 in latest poll. When I tried to get the local and national media to question this I was told, our job is to report findings, not questions and besides how do know this is the poll you took part in. I was polled on my birthday, which fell in between the polling dates. Just watched the PM answer questions from Terry M-cbc-in Vancouver. Terry asked for proof of bias and Mr Harper replied, I thing that any reporter that wants to ask a question should have the freedom to do so, however, the PPG has made, and want to continue to make, the decision of who can ask questions. It is the PPG that is doing the gagging, not the PMO. The media is losing this. I am not the only one who has experienced bias, how many have posted to newspapers and not been printed. It is too bad this can’t be tabulated, as I am sure it is in the thousands, and only we know about it. Perhaps editors could keep a tally and post how many comments were refused. Like me, everyone else has probably told someone who has told someone, word of mouth is spreading the word.
Another example of laziness is no one ever questions numbers-5000 hits a day-100,000 die from smoking-and remember the story on how many dogs one breeding pair produced in 7 yrs, over several thousand. I once called stats canada to ask where all the bodies were as in 3 days experts had quoted-50,000 women died from breast cancer in a certain yr, next day we learned over 100,000 had died in car accidents, next come 200,000 died from smoking. As only 298,793 thousand had died in Canada, of all ages and all causes, I wondered if deepfreezes were being used for storage. Do some research before jumping to conclusions, it can be interesting.
You gotta love these people who deny the bias. I remember how at the time when CBC was continually burying new information about criminal behaviour in the LPC, they attacked Gurmant Grewal on national TV over insufficient documentation of several $600 cheques made out not to any political party but to him personally.
Those who gas on about how there’s no bias should imagine a mirror world where reporters who look the other way while the Conservatives take millions in laundered taxpayer money fulsomely attack some backbench Liberal MP for several small cheques made out to him personally.
Measure the bias? SNIFF IT. Check out this quote from a reporter’s attack on Grewal — again, this in a context in which millions were laundered and kicked back to the LPC, where bureaucrats feared for their lives, where hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer’s monies were being exchanged in restaurants, etc:
“The issue here is that the elections act has very strict rules about campaign donations. Everyone must get a recipt, and the act makes it illegal for donations to be deposited anywhere but in the campaign’s account, or the riding association’s. The act also says that only the official agent can handle contributions, and that every one of these must be reported to Elections Canada. In Gurmant Grewal’s campaign, we found five cases where these things don’t seem to have happened.”
What can you say, other than that denials of bias by Steve D. et al are worthless? Hey, if you can’t read a five-foot high eye-chart from ten feet away, you can’t be a referee, nor be taken seriously when you comment on how level the proverbial playing field is.
In the face of something as gaudy and blatant as the bias against Harper last spring/summer when CBC reporters were pretty much in Liberal uniforms, saying “I don’t see it” in a didactic tone isn’t an argument but rather a self-incriminating statement, one that evokes that old familiar 90’s Liberal sense of entitlement to posess and control the ongoing narrative in this country. Some people, when they say “prove it”, you’d pretty much have to pull their eyelids open first before any worthwhile discussion could begin.
Wow, I’m surprised that B.Fife stayed, I find CTV extremely leftist. The station here in Montreal is rabid in it’s hate for Bush and Americans and Harper. (the main actor can hardly control his grimaces and snears when he yaks about PM-Harper/PoUS-Bush or the word American.)
Truly get the feeling if your not a liberal or one of their favourite little ‘victim group’, you’re just garbage that they have to put up with.
I’m with Eskimo, don’t even bother to watch any of their garbage with their obvious bias and their undying love and adoration of hollywood stars, while evading real issues of the day, so I’m not missing much.
Grasshopper :Do those of us who back PMSH’s position in this feel that he should at times have to answer very uncomfortable questions from the media? Or never?
Sure we should . No one with any brains would say otherwise. One has to always be vigil with these characters. No matter if w approve or not. If he goofs by all means it should be reported if only to rectify a situation. On the other hand do we really want to hear about PMSH shaking hands & not slobbeing over his boy’s. Who would have been mortified if he had done anything more? Do we want to know his waist size? How about the insults , since day one?
Let alone his his predesesers. Gee I wonder if the disrespect & contempt shown Stockwell day had something to do with Harpers distaste for the PPG?
The press should stick to facts, truth, & policy. Not make there barbs into personel attacks.Unless warented by bad behavior of the PM or other Mp’s.
We ned a viable press. A real press not a collection of ego’s & folks who cared nothing for the public & its welfare. Nor did they care to be watchdogs of our polity. They sprinkled the librals in rose petals while hiding there sins for political, & social gain to themselves. It was all about them. Thats the discussion.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. –P.J. O’Rourke, Civil Libertarian
What does PMSH need the media for anyway. Podcast it and put it on a server. Done.
Does he need them for reporting news or for undercutting his points and doing the same job as the national opposition. If they want to be the opposition then they should go out there and shart kissing babies like any other pol vying for votes.
Bugger the press, who needs them.