The Battle for Bunkum Hill

All out war has broken out between the Parliamentary Press Gallery and the Harper government, according to Global National with Kevin Newman.

Prior to the start of a news conference in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would contribute $40 million in humanitarian and military assistance to the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, members of the press gallery simultaneously got up and left, moments before the prime minister arrived in the room, in an act of defiance against new news conference rules imposed against the media.

Harper has come under fire from the media in recent months for limiting the parliamentary press gallery from having access to certain events and federal personalities.

I know that some excreTories think it's great that Harper isn't playing ball with the commie left-wing loony liberal MSM but there will come a time of reckoning. This is not the USA where you can bypass the news media by going on the late night talk shows. There are no late night talk shows here to go on. And there are only so many commercial minutes a party can afford to buy during an election campaign.

Despite what the Con-o-sphere thinks, the MSM, especially TV, are still where the overwhelming majority of people find their news. But it looks like the Blogging Tories didn't get the memo on that cold hard fact. Reaction from the Con-o-sphere here and here and here and here.

So the old media doesn't want to cover Stephen Harper under these new rules? Fine. Start shooting some press releases and doing online Q&A sessions with us bloggers. Might not be as engaging as video for the evening news, but if it keeps Canadians informed, why not? It gives the government a means of getting its message out, and subjects the government to questions from people with a fresh perspective. And no one thinks bloggers are uniformly left-wing the way the old media is perceived (not entirely fairly, by the way).

This promises to get funner still.

UPPITY DATE: Paul Wells has some thoughts here and here.

UPPER: Say, heeeeeeeeeeere's an idea from Geneva Gin.

A good old fashioned bowler hat. That is what. It should be used to collect the business cards of every journalist who wants to ask a question. The President of the PPG shakes it before the PM appears and places it conveniently close to the PM. When "The Statement" has been made and the floor is open for questions the PM picks one of the business cards out of the hat and invites that journalist to ask a question. No control by the PPG, No control by the PMO and no more long and rowdy line ups at a microphone.

But how will we know he reads the actual card he picks? And how will we ensure that French and English get equal time? And what about TV versus print? East versus west?

Forget I brought it up.

Comments

[Bill-Muskoka]

And as the HOT topics fly into view...

Okay, I just had to post this again in this thread:

Hahahahaha. ROFLMAO! The PPG finally wised up. They WALKED OUT ON HARPER! TURNED THEIR BACKS and ignored the schmuck!

Hey Stevey, whatcha gonna do now? Buy the National Compost maybe? I bet your buddy Ralph Klein can send you a check from all those oil sands profits.

Get ready folks, we be headed for another election soon!

[matt]

Are you implying that the media is going to antagonize the PM during the next fed election with false stories and biased news reporting? And you call yourselves professionals? wow. what a joke.

[True North]

Harpo will probably pull a Mike Harris and start sending us glossy direct mail "newsletters" to keep us "informed" - paid for by us.

[sooey]

stupid press gallery - so behind the times. you don't need to ask the government questions - just make up answers.

[Dana]

"Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right..."

The happiest outcome for these Conservative dippies would be no non-party controlled press whatever.

Sound familiar?

The lengths they appear willing to go to to suppress or marginalize dissenting voices is exactly, *exactly*, the US conservative movement playbook. *Exactly*.

Look how successful that's been and what glory it's led to.

There are several major media players in Canada having a grand time going along with the joke. They showed their hands before the election and they haven't pulled their cards back in toward their vests yet. If they had any integrity or honour as regards their supposed information function in a democracy they would either change the names of their news gathering arms or cancel them.

They'll have a splendid time reframing Harper's dismantling of confederation and destruction of our international reputation.

I piss on their heads.

[Junior]

The last prime minister who adapted a bunker mentality with the media and pretty much declared war on the national press gallery was Brian Mulroney.

That worked out well for him.

I thought Harper was smarter than that. This is a battle that cannot be won, not in the long-term.

[JDot]

The PPG are a bunch of babies. And guess what Harpers story still got out.

I love this, watching the PPG cry, this is just to much fun.

So I say lock the doors Harper and don't let the PPG back in.

[JDot]

Even better Harper should just get some lackey like Bush has in the USA to answer his question. Then watch the PPG go bonkers

[Jay Currie]

This could get interesting. If the PPG keeps up its wee tantrum its startling irrelevance as presently constituted is going to be underlined day by day.

Late night talkshows? Please...maybe for Joe Wilson or Al Gore but Bush doesn't use or need them.

No, what will happen is that Cabinet Ministers and Tory MPs are going to become very available to everyone but the PPG. The PM will be happy to take a call from the Flinn Flon Fillibuster and the Lachine News. Would the regional press like to interview the PM? Would Canadians like a weekly online townhall with the PM. (Steve Taylor could put that together and publicize it in a heartbeat.)

The PPG is doomed if it keeps up this hissy fit. Not only can it be bypassed, it is demonstrating it should be bypassed as it can no longer be trusted to report the news...Good Riddance.

[Mark Collins]

'Pearl Harbor bombed; White House press corps boycotts Roosevelt's news conference'

'Nixon resigns; White House press corps boycotts helicopter south lawn lift-off'

From sit-ins to walk-outs. Soon no-one will notice. Or care.

Mark
Ottawa

[Antonia Z.]

No Jay, you're right. Bush doesn't need them because the compliant corporate media just give him his airtime. If you watch the cable news nets as much as I do, you'll see them turn over hours of their day parts to his canned speeches where the everything, from the background to the audience is hand-selected by the White House. It's been going on ever since 9/11, even though, 9/10 of these camera opps produce no news at all.

[sheena]

Wow,JDot. You guys give the gallery guys too much credit. It's not like they're Air Traffic Controllers or anything.

[Debris Trail]

Last I checked, this morning in fact, Harper's polling numbers are still rising, and rising, and rising... and all this without the help of the Liberal Party of Canada Official News Service... the CPP! By I do agree, this may get funnier yet as Harper wins a majority next election... now that, would be truly funny.

[nps]

"Start shooting some press releases and doing online Q&A sessions with us bloggers. Might not be as engaging as video for the evening news, but if it keeps Canadians informed, why not? It gives the government a means of getting its message out, and subjects the government to questions from people with a fresh perspective."

What......... you got to be f---ing joking,do bloggers really think the average person is going sit in front of a computer to communicate, er listen to the shit floating about. Do bloggers think their sties are that important. more so their messages, especially partisan politics. What crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dana]

Every now and then, despite their protestations to the contrary, the Harper Conservative supporters displsy their Bush worship.

Jay, Jdot, Mark...

And again it's clear that all they really want the press to be is a party apparatus.

Maoists at bottom.

[Paul Wells]

This has truly become a dialogue of the deaf, between advocates of this government who are waiting for Hill scribes to collapse under the weight of our own Communist fatuity, and opponents of this government who wonder why we won't STOP THESE BASTARDS NOW. This fight has been going on for months and I'd be astonished to learn that one mind has changed about who's right and who's wrong. (I'd be delighted to be told I'm mistaken: has anyone out there changed their mind?)

What I do wish more people understood is that some number of us in the gallery do agree that this is, fundamentally, a trivial dispute, between their shitty system for running a scrum and OUR shitty system for running a scrum. I've tried to reflect that ambiguity on my blog, by being sometimes critical of the Harper PMO, sometimes less so, sometimes critical of my colleagues. That approach doesn't seem to have changed any minds either. As the wise man once said: whatever.

[Jay Currie]

Dana,truth to tell I like Bush rather more than I like Harper and as a quick look at my blog will attest I don't like Harper or the CPC much.

However, the PPG is not who Harper answers to and if he chooses to bypass them or to manage his "availabities" differently that's his call. The only people he is requred to answer to are the MPs in the House of Commons.

I would very much like to see a vigorous, responsible, opinionated and accurate free press in Canada. I would also like to see reporting seperated from opinion.

Bypassing the scrum may very well lead to a press which is less focused on every Priminsterial fart and more interested in the actual governance of the nation.

To take a recent example: where in the MSM's spotty coverage of Australian PM Howard's visit to Ottawa was it mentioned that as of April 30, 2006, Australia now has no national debt (I mean other than my blog and, Lord save me, Robert McClelland's; but we are hardly MSM.) That was an actual story and some clever member of the PPG might have had the wit to a) ask Howard how it was done, b) ask Harper why it was not being done in Canada. Harper mentioned this rather astonishing fact in his speech but none of the brilliant guys and gals in the PPG followed it up.

Now, the question is does Harper need the PPG? Ten years ago I suspect he would have, now, maybe. But if he set up a weekly townhall online that would be news and it would be covered. The scrummers would simply fade into well deserved obscurity.

Of course some of them would recognize the game had changed and get busy finding real stories; but the 1200 strong PPG would be a thing of the past.

[Ti-Guy]

Much ado about nothing? Hardly. If the Harpies can't stand up to a little scrutiny and bad press, it means they aren't able to deal effectively with scrutiny and bad press. No real democrat should think such a glaring weakness in his or her government is trivial.

The Harpies are at their worst when they face the media directly, without the comfort of filtering their messages through spin-meisters. We have a right to see that, and a right to expect our news media to expose that.

[sooey]

yabbut, paul wells, are you that other wise man who said, "it's the system, maaaaan"?

[Bill-Muskoka]

Hmm...seems to me the PPG has taken the advice of how to deal with a school yard bully. Bullies crave attention, they want respect and recognition, the thrive on being in control.

Want to suffocate a bully? Ignore the SOB! I think they caught onto the key and applaud them for it. Harper will need to come down quite a few notches and realize who he works for We the People!

I hope the PPG continue to do exactly what they did...cover the BS speeches and walk out. That way Harper has to stand solely on what he says. No spin, just competent rhetoric, or failure before the people.

I can think of no greater challenge to Harper than this.

[Dana]

Paul Wells that might be fine - to view this as a pissing match between advocates of two pissy systems of scrum running - if it's only viewed in isolation.

But some of us see it in the context of being part of a larger frame picture of media relations/message control/information flow.

You of course are free to view it as narrowly as you wish.

[JDot]

the PPG get what they deserve all they have done since Harper haws been in power is complain.

They complain about his shaking his kids hand,waist,vest what pop he drinks and of course the number one harper comment when you have nothing to say Compare Harper to Bush.

The bottom line the sky has not fallen, Harper did become Prime Minster and the PPG can't stand it. And I love watching it.

Bill Muskoka - I agree with your last post on the bullies, but just reverse.

Dana - did you get a big enough sip of that Harper/Bush Haterade lol

[Dana]

Jay, to whom does Harper answer?

His civilian supporter base? His caucus? His cabinet?

How about Parliament?

Do the people of the nation he purports to govern fit in there anywhere?

He and his homies can easily answer to their base via some crapped up online forum cheerfest. There might be a few brave independent minded Canadians of the 'other' category who would brave the event to try and ask a question of less than sycophantic pointedness. The question wouldn't be answered and the questioner would find themselves mysteriously bumped out of the forum. Perhaps you've noticed the intolerance for dissent or criticism among most of the online Conservative base. It's their most endearing characteristic.

Answering to Parliament - well even Coyne has had to admit that Harper demonstrates very little respect of Parliament. True Coyne made the remark in regards to one specific - but the importance of the specific only indicates that matters of lesser import in the House would receive even
less respect.

The people of Canada...aye, there's the rub.

I live in Vancouver. Getting to Ottawa to sit in the gallery, go to public events where government members might answer questions I might have and so on is not something I can do really easily. So I rely to a certain extent on the PPG to do it for me. Sometimes they do it well, sometimes they do it abysmally. As would I or you.

That they are a pain in the ass to the PM or cabinet of the day is all to the good as far as I'm concerned. I never want to have a government sitting in Ottawa, of any given political stripe, either on cozy terms with the press or isolated from the press.

For good or ill the PPG is part of my eyes and ears on government. Yours too if you're one who cares about good government more than mere partisan advantage.

I suspect there are lots of Liberals around today who wish that they'd been able to kill off the PPG too. Some of them are already serving sentences.

My suspicious mind tells me that the avoidance of that possisbility is what is driving the current government's desire to kill of the PPG.

It didn't work for Mulroney's governments of course but it's always worth trying again. Lots more money to be had if there's no one yelling questions at you while you're trying to close your fist around the lolly.

[Bill-Muskoka]

Paul Wells,

Has it changed any minds? Yes, mine. When this thing started I supported the PM because I do not believe that scrums are mature, nor professional, and certainly not respectful of our Parliament and PM. I was rather adamant about respectful behaviour in that regard.

Now, I see the PM having tried to be evasive and act, quite frankly, like Bush and WDC, I support the PPG walking away after the PM has said what he chose to say.

Personally, I would appreciate the MSM more if they just accurately reported what was said and let me decide what it means, and its relative importance to my life and country!

I give them both 'D's', at the best!

Hopefully, Harper will come around, and so will the PPG, and actually have meaningful exchanges in an orderly manner.

The TV news people only run sound bites anyway, so I haven't trusted those in decades.

I am a big Paul Harvey believer..'I want ALL of the story, and without the opinionated rhetoric of the journalist.

Note the very word 'journalist' to be one who records in a journal, i.e., as a matter of record. Hence the term 'on the record'!

I think politicians are quite able to self-destruct without making the MSM a scapegoat. LOL

[Jay Currie]

Dana, as I aid earlier, the PM is accountable to the members of Parliament. He is not accountable, in any formal sense, to the people who those MP's represent. If the people of Canada do not like PM and his party they get to vote them out. (We may not like this system and I doubt it will survive the ability of people to get online and directly in the MP's faces; but that is how it is.)

Now, since when has the PPG replace MPs? The PPG has no role whatsoever in the constition of Canada. The press is not the tribune of the people. It is unelected, undemocratic, unrepresentative and at the beck and call of a tiny minority - its owners.

Which is not to say I do not favour a rigorous and radically free press investigating, reporting and offering opinion and editorial judgement. All I am saying is that such a press should enjoy - as of right - no more priviledge than any citizen to access to the PM or the rest of the government.

The government will develope a communications strategy which is its perfect right. The press should do its best to report the news which the communications strategy is designed to manage.

Asserting some presumed right to manage the PM's press conferences simply demonstrates how surpline the vast majority of the PPG has beome.

Now, if the