I found my thrill on Parliament Hill

(Hey, it ain't easy always coming up with these heds, ya know.)

Today the Star ran a CP story with more on the journalist walkout yesterday during Prime Minister Stephen Harper's press conference -- the one without most of the press. Note the conclusion.

The Star was one of the media outlets that chose to remain.

Today my friend and colleague Susan Delacourt, Ottawa bureau chief for the Star, emailed with a comment. I thought it better to give her a posting of her own. Here it is:

It looks like a silly spat. It many ways it is.

For print reporters, this whole business of scrums and how they run is a sideshow. We don't need TV or voice clips to write about the Prime Minister.

So I haven't leaned in any strong direction on the list until recently, when I started to see that Canada's Prime Minister, personally, was taking a keen interest. In fact, it was so important to him that he waded into the fray personally, rather than leave it to his handlers,  at the now-infamous accountability announcement.  (Where he refused to recognize the reporters lined up at the microphone and tried to choose his own questioner.)

The fact that the top politician in Canada thinks this issue is worth his while means, I'm sorry, then it becomes important to us too.

Why is it so important to him? We don't know.

Why is it so important to us that we decide who ask questions? Let me just give it a try:

The Parliamentary Press Gallery is an elected institution in Ottawa. Every year, we vote for its executive members who have regular meetings. There is a PPG staff, with a budget, to serve as a central clearing house/operation centre/hub between the government and the media. These are the folks who call all of us at home when there's a disaster, who make sure that reporters aren't paid lobbyists harassing politicians, who oversee decorum and civility on the Hill.

We want the PPG to run the news conferences because if they do a bad job -- giving all the questions to the CBC, or English language or Toronto-based media, or men/women only, for example -- we can hold them accountable.

Note that word: ACCOUNTABLE. We like the concept too. We believe in it. We have built rules around it. These are rules that have functioned for many years, to the benefit of reporters AND politicians. Because there are organized scrums after cabinet, for instance, ministers aren't chased around the clock at restaurants, at their homes and outside their offices. Canada has not seen the kind of excessive camera-stalking of politicians, for instance, largely because we've had a civilized dialogue on the rules of engagement here.

If that relationship is to be revisited, we do not think it's unreasonable for it to be a two-way conversation. So far, the PMO has not proposed any new arrangements that involve compromise on their part, or even input from us. Nor has anyone explained why PMO needs to run the scrums.

I grew up, journalistically, at the Globe and Mail, where the motto still runs on the editorial page every day: "The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures." Why don't I just leave it at that?

Over to you.

Comments

[sooey]

so... i guess you're saying the star... kind of... like... scabbed... anyway, great article in frank picked up by the globe about press gallery memberships. dead guys, russian journalists no one's ever heard of - apparently it's quite an exclusive club...

[Bill-Muskoka]

Antonia,

Thank you for posting Susan's statement. That educated all of us. A great benefit to free society is understanding.

[Jay Currie]

Ms. Delacourt makes a convincing case for the existance of the PPG. And, indeed, it makes a great deal of sense for there to be a rule setting body for the PPG. However, the PMO has no particular obligation to play by the rules the PPG wants to use. It might well be in its interest to play by those rules...or not.

Harper is perfectly entitled to run his press availabilities his way. And the PPG is entitled to cover or not cover those availabilities according to taste. (One might think it their job to cover those availabilities but that is a chat the owners of the newspapers and tv stations will have with their employees.)

The key thing here is that the PPG has no actual standing, no right to be anywhere near the PM or his Cabinet. They have no right to question the PM nor do they have the right to determine the order of who is to question if the opportunity to question arises. Obviously this is rather different from activities in the House where the PM and Cabinet must answer the questions posed to them by the elected MPs in an order determined by the Speaker of the House.

No one elected the press. The PPG does not represent in any meaningful way Canadians. It has no status in law and while they may make a claim to tradition, tradition is easily changed.

Ms. Delacourt stayed and did her job. Which means the Star's readers received something of value. The people who walked out did not do their jobs and their readers and viewers were shortchanged.

I've no doubt that the PMO will, as part of its communications strategy, come to some agreement with the PPG. What amazes me is that the PPG would be willing to sacrifice its fredom in order to cover the non-events which most press availablities actually are.

Not submitting to "arbitrary measures" must surely include refusing to kow tow to the spin strategy of the Chief Magistrate. Delacourt's defence of the PPG shows just how cozy the relationship between the PMO and the PPG had become under the Liberals. A free press would never have let it come to that.

[Jiminy C]

Stephen Harper - Magistrate!
Hm! Has a ring to it doesn't it!
Maybe that's what he'll do when he's thrown out of 22 Sussex!
I do hope the spat is sorted out soon - while the story of Stephen's buddy Jean Charest and the entire Quebec Assembly telling him (and the rest of the world) that, despite his (and Rona Ambrose's) reneging on Kyoto, Quebec is going to stand by it is still resonating on the editorial pages!
First big pitched battle for Mr. Haprer - and from such an unexpected quarter!

[vinb]

"Goo goo g'job" was an awesome hed. By the way.

[Ti-Guy]

"who make sure that reporters aren't paid lobbyists"

Translation: "No Gannons"

I think Susan makes a very reasonnable case. All of us are, or should be, interested in the truth from our media, not weird game playing that distorts democracy. Harpie should be mindful of that.

[Carla]

I just read this at the Globe online, quoting the PM:

"Unfortunately the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government,” Mr. Harper told London's A-Channel.

“They don't ask questions at my press conferences now.

“We'll just take the message out on the road. There's lots of media who do want to ask questions and hear what the government is doing.”

Part of me doesn't mind the press gallery having to hustle for a story, and not being able to report, breathlessly, every innuendo and rumour. What Susan tells us brings a different perspective to it all though. This PM is so arrogant to the extreme (witness his behaviour at the Afghanistan debate last week) that it just makes me crazy to read these sulky quotes about the national press. I daresay he's not very graceful... or mature!

[Antonia Z.]

FROM CP THIS AFTERNOON:

Harper says national media are biased against him and he will avoid them
OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the national media are biased against him so he will avoid them from now on.
The prime minister says the Ottawa press gallery seems to have decided to become the opposition to his Conservative government.
He told London TV station CFPL that he's having problems with the media that a Liberal prime minister would never have to face.
So Harper says he will take his message out on the road and deal with less hostile local reporters.
Two dozen Ottawa reporters walked out on a Harper event this week when he refused to take their questions.
The prime minister does not want to hold press conferences unless his staff gets to pick which journalists ask questions.
The Ottawa press gallery has refused to play by those rules.

[Antonia Z.]

A Canadian journalist based in Washington writes (annonymously, although i know who it is):

I read Delacourt's post, and she put it very well.
And not only is there less "camera stalking" in Canada, politicians there enjoy other privileges not available to politicians in the Washington system, to which some Canadian conservatives look as a model for taming the media.
Most notably the privilege of personal privacy.
Stephen Harper does not have to provide the media with details of his every move. . .every dinner date, every vacation, every trip to visit a friend. . .and arrange for a pool to follow him. George W. Bush does.
Stephen Harper does not have to provide reporters with every detail of every medical condition he develops. . .remember Ronald Reagan's polyps? Nor does he have to provide reporters with his tax return.
Here, national leaders are expected to do that. It is done in the name of transparency, and, yes, accountability to the public that elected them.
The modus vivendi in Canada does not make those demands. I'd be interested to know whether the conservatives believe the Canadian public has the same right to know those things as the American public does.

[Antonia Z.]

Here's a link for that CP story above:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/24052006/2/national-harper-says-national-media-biased-against-avoid.html

"Unfortunately the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government," Harper told London's A-Channel.

"They don't ask questions at my press conferences now.

"We'll just take the message out on the road. There's lots of media who do want to ask questions and hear what the government is doing."

[Bill-Muskoka]

Personally, I do not want to know if the PM has polyps, hemoroids, a proctological exam, allergies, ED, or other personal data. I also do not give a damn about his wasteline or clothes, or where he buys them.

I do want to know, and in an accurate and succient manner what the PM is saying regarding Canadian laws and society, as well as his world foriegn policy views.

Otherwise, if he takes a dump, I could care less.

There is the difference between Canada and the U.S.. Please PPG give us the wheat and not the chaff! Report news, not hyperbole!

[Observer]

Perhaps Ms. Delacourt would be prepared to explain what _she_ thinks her job in Ottawa is, along with Jane Taber: pundit, columnist, or old-fashioned reporter?

It's understandable why Harper would be unwilling to regularly make himself available to the pundit class, particularly those who write for the Star (no disrespect intended to media columnists), given its Toronto-centric, Liberal-til-death, ideological bias in both its news coverage and editorial comment.

What is remarkable now is that there is very little distinction between pundits and "reporters". Delacourt might write a news story one day, but then write a "reflective" piece, with very little news content, the following day, and then show up on Politics at the end of the week being nothing but a pundit.

Jane Taber has the same self-identification problem, though I give Ms Delacourt much more credit than I would Taber any day.

I have far graver reservations about Keith Boag, who sometimes starts off The National with a news story, and other times, he's just ask to provide a commentary on the leading news story. His much talked-about Accountability Act should have resulted in his being sent on sabbattical, but he's still playing the same old game. CTV is just as bad, if not worse.

I'd be interested in hearing people's views on whether this is really the transformation of the Canadian media over the last decade or more -- that the role of "journalist" and "commentator" are now almost virtually interchangeable. There are exceptions, of course: Rex Murphy provides lots of comment, but I don't believe he's ever written a news story for the start of the National or the front page of the Globe. Same with Jeffrey Simpson or Jim Travers, former "reporters" both. But there's an increasing number who want (or are directed) to straddle both sides -- Delacourt being one, John Ivison, Brian Laghi, and Jane Taber being others. There's no separation any more between what is "news" and what is "editorial comment", and I think that is what has made all national media outlets so ridiculous and lacking in credibility in recent years.

[arthurdecco]

Antonia, I posted this submission under another different but brilliant hed. After reading the posts under this fabulous hed here, I thought I'd like an answer to my question from those posting in support of Harper on this one, if they're willing.

Would you rather Canada becomes as ridiculous a place as America where it took Stephen Colbert, a comedian, to stand up and stare GW Bush and 2500 of his biggest media fans straight in the face with 20 minutes of capital-T Political Truth while the very same media mostly sat on their hands and then didn't even report that it happened?

Is that what you want for Canada?

Somehow, even with my serious reservations about the objectivity of much of our media, I still think I'll learn more about what this government doesn't want me to know if someone other than Stephen Harper or his handlers get to choose who asks him the questions.

[Ti-Guy]

"Perhaps Ms. Delacourt would be prepared to explain what _she_ thinks her job in Ottawa is, along with Jane Taber: pundit, columnist, or old-fashioned reporter?"

I'm constantly amazed how Harpies think they're entitled to hold inquisitions with regard to the media. I don't think Susan Delacourt would choose to say anything about Jane Taber.

How arrogant.

[nps]

I remember many years ago in my former province one JRS(Joseph R Smallwood) got on the wrong side of the press during the latter part of his administration and years later ditto for one A. Brian Peckford. Both of these individuals thought they could run over the media during their respective time in office, much to their detriment as they soon found out. The press will continue to write and write and write and guess what, people still do what they did forty odd years ago – read the newspapers. Harper is now in the same uncharted waters as Joey and Alfie……..

[Jay Currie]

nps, I suspect Harper is not too worried about shoals. At this point the PPG has much more to lose than the PMO. Once the PM decides - rightly or wrongly - that the PPG has it in for him and that he is not going to play, 1200 people are, practically speaking, out of a job.

There is no reason at all for Harper to play the scrum game and lots of reasons not to. Especially given the fact that a number of "reporters" are also plying the opinion journalist game.

And, more importantly, as the Tories drift up in the polls and get their agenda past in spite of the self appointed press opposition, one has to wonder whether the PPG really matters any more.

[arthurdecco]

Jay, does the hat you wear have three bells on it?

[Scott Disher aka MoDuv]

Folks, Susan Delacourt's little insider missive was fine and all but to get some contextural traction, one ought to read Paul Wells's May 25 blov post re: the preponderance of vacuous superficiality in the aftermath of the MSM's lemmingesque dumbing down of what was already very meek due-diligence related reportage of the federal Gov't and its goings on.

Re: the paranoid, churlish Harper angle, on May 22, Swellsy, who has a good memory and reads widely (unlike many of his press gallery colleagues), posted on his blov the following four germane excerpts from what was surely the most underrated examination of the history of Canadian gov't-media relations to have been published in the last quarter century. I read "Scrum Wars: The Prime Ministers and the Media" by Allan Levine with great admiration 12 years ago just after it was published...many of you may want to check it out of your local library:

"The [news] conferences had first been convened, starting in December 1976, at the theatre in the National Press Building and had been chaired by the gallery executive itself. But in November 1978, in an attempt to exercise greater control over the prime minister's meetings with journalists, [Communications Director Dick] O'Hagan moved the weekly gatherings down Wellington Street to the Canada Conference Centre. Now the conferences were chaired by Trudeau's press secretary Jean Charpentier, who decided which reporters could ask questions.

"O'Hagan was also unhappy with the 'wooden, remote and professorial' image of Trudeau 'sitting behind the desk in the (Press Building's) Theatre, with a flag behind him and glass of Perrier Water (with a slice of lemon) at his right hand.' At the Conference Centre he could stand.... For O'Hagan, the image was perfect."

————

"[Louis] St. Laurent respected the press and media as having as important a job to do as Parliamentarians. But this did not mean that St. Laurent was willing to be 'scrummed.' Reporters would stand patiently in an East Block corridor waiting for cabinet meetings to end. When they approached the prime minister with a question about what had been discussed, he would usually cut them off curtly. 'You have no right whatsoever to examine my mind,' he'd tell them. 'if there will be some action, I will let you know.'"

————

"Whereas Diefenbaker relished the challenge of the corridor debates, Pearson found them impossible.... At the suggestion of press secretary Dick O'Hagan, the journalists were moved into a special conference room. ... Two long and trying years went by before Pearson finally banned this media circus from Parliament's hallways for the duration of his term in office."

...BTW, it's worth noting that the savvy, amusing and well-connected O'Hagan, a Toronto Telegram alumnus, was the most pragmatic media manager to have worked in the Pearson and Trudeau era PMO's. For nearly 40 years he was the uber upper echelon spin specialist in Canada (he also served at the embassy in Washington prior to joining the BMO).

Compare and contrast then O'Hagan, Marc Lalonde, Jim Coutts, Keith Davey and Tom Axworthy with Ms. Sandra Buckler and Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, neither of whom has the sort of comparative heft of the afore-named Trudeauites--and there were a dozen others with a good deal more gravitas around Trudeau--and you get the picture of a bunch of compliant, not-quite-off-the-turnip-truck Jimmy Carter White-House type, obnoxiously insecure outsiders barricading themselves virtually incommunicado behind closed doors and picayune rituals designed to achieve ephemeral, absurdly apprehended, pyrrhic petty triumphs over Harper's senselessly perceived inside-the-beltway 'cultural adversaries'.

As Brian Muldoon's former chief flack L. Ian MacDonald (who, like his predecessor O'Hagan, left the PMO to serve as media maven at the Washington embassy) noted in his Montreal Gazette op-ed column on Wednesday...what Harper desperately lacks is a strategically schooled and seasoned inside-Ottawa operator cum major domo who can push all the right buttons, especially those that govern his boss!

[Greg Felton]

If Harper keeps this up he'll be the best thing that ever happened to the Liberals, who seem bent on self-imolation at the moment:

here's a letter I sent to the Star: a propos Harbush:

Dear Editor:

Aw, so poor little Stephen doesn't like the media. Thinks it’s biased against him. Thinks he has the right to pick and choose which reporters get to ask questions. I got news for the little autocrat-poseur—this is a democracy and the press is not obliged to act like a trained seal.

If Harper wants a hand-picked palace press to fawn over him and lob softball questions he should emigrate to the former republic of America, where the press is more than willing to censor itself and abet all manner of government atrocities.

Canada deserves better than to be misled by a neo-con coward who refuses to be held accountable for his actions. If Harper hasn’t the balls or the character to face the music he shouldn’t be leading the orchestra.

Greg Felton,
New Westminster, B.C.

[koby]

Harper is playing to his base. Many Conservatives really believe that despite all the evidence pointing the other way that the MSM is pro Liberal.

Declan points out how stupid you have to be to take this seriously.

"During the campaign there were 3,753 articles written about the election
in the 7 newspapers studied (The Calgary Herald, The Globe and Mail, The
National Post, the Toronto Star and the Vancouver Sun, La Presse and Le
Devoir)

Of those 3753, 3035 mentioned the Liberal party. Out of those 3035, there were 40 with positive mentions of the Liberal party and 445 with negative mentions of the Liberals, giving a 11 to 1 ratio of negative mentions to positive (slightly higher than last election's 10-1 ratio).

Meanwhile, for the Conservative Party, the figures were 2730 total articles, including 144 positive mentions and 127 negative mentions, for a slightly positive overall slant (the positive mentions were similar to last election, but the negatives were cut in half).

The NDP garnered 2% positive mentions and 3% negative mentions, while the Bloc received 2% positive coverage, 4% negative.

The numbers for the party leaders are quite similar with Martin getting 5 negative mentions for every positive one, while Harper received more favourable than unfavourable mentions."

http://crawlacrosstheocean.blogspot.com/2006/01/conservative-media-part-3.html

[Ti-Guy]

Jay Currie:

"I suspect Harper is not too worried about shoals."

Based on what evidence, exactly?

"At this point the PPG has much more to lose than the PMO."

How so?

"Once the PM decides - rightly or wrongly - that the PPG has it in for him and that he is not going to play, 1200 people are, practically speaking, out of a job."

So you're willing to accept PMSH deciding *wongly* about this? And this doesn't bother you? And "practically speaking, out of a job." What does that mean, exactly?

"There is no reason at all for Harper to play the scrum game and lots of reasons not to."

Why is there "no reason to play?" And since there are lots of reason not to, can you provide one?

"Especially given the fact that a number of "reporters" are also plying the opinion journalist game."

If this is a given fact, which reporters are plying (sic) the "opinion journalist game?"

"And, more importantly, as the Tories drift up in the polls and get their agenda past in spite of the self appointed press opposition, one has to wonder whether the PPG really matters any more."

This really is just a long, fact-free ode to Beloved Leader, isn't it?

What that has to do with critiquing the media, I'll never know. From what I can see, you don't appear to understand the function of news media. All you know is that it's...*gasp*...biased.

[Jiminy C]

Harpie doesn't have to worry about getting his message out. He's getting all the exposure he needs via the Chinchilla Man's BLOG.
Popped into Warren's site this AM - to find he now prominently displays a polling panel - replete with the photo of a smiling Harper and the CPC logo - and a smug post that his site has been blacklisted in Dubai!

I think I'll put Mr. Kinsella's site in the DUB-ious column from this point forward!

[Bill-Muskoka]

Observer,

'There's no separation any more between what is "news" and what is "editorial comment", and I think that is what has made all national media outlets so ridiculous and lacking in credibility in recent years.'

So do I! I would much prefer all the opinion comments to come from someone as intelligent as Rex Murphy. He has a unique skill. I find his comments candid, pointed, and balanced. He has earned my respect over the years.

Arthur,

Regarding Jay's hat...And a propeller! LMAO!

[Maz]

If Prime Minister Harper refuses to communicate with the parliamentary press gallery and takes his bat and goes home, the press gallery may have to give the Opposition in the House of Commons more time and space, more voice, as it were, and then
the PM's complaint of bias will definitely turn out to have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. Is it my imagination... or is the Harper goverment beginning to clumsily parody the Bush White House with its cult of aloofness, secrecy, and only-for-those-who-need-to-know top-down management style?

[Bill-Muskoka]

Maz,

Great idea. Let the PPG talk to all the opposition. Then Harper will have to respond, rather than lead. Again, I say ask him no questions but make him stand solely on what he says, and ON THE RECORD!