Posted on 04/01/2006 12:43:41 AM PST by goldstategop
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who electioneered by promising Canadians a more "open" government, took two measures last month aimed at establishing a more "closed" one – closed, that is, to the media. In so doing, he appeared to have declared war on the parliamentary press gallery.
First, he decreed that all public communications from his Cabinet ministers – everything from speeches, to press releases, to policy statements, to letters to the editor – must have the prior approval of the Prime Minister's Office.
Second, he ruled that the meetings of his Cabinet will no longer be announced in advance, and press access to the chamber outside the Cabinet Room will henceforth be closed to the media. This meant that reporters could no longer waylay ministers as they left Cabinet meetings for on-the-spot televised "scrums," which occasionally result in unbecoming and often-incoherent shouting matches between reporters and Cabinet ministers.
The announcements, particularly the latter, set off a furious media protest, and much editorial denunciation. A formal meeting between the press gallery executive and officials of the Prime Minister's Office broke up after 20 minutes because, said a gallery spokeswoman, "we weren't getting anywhere."
Meeting the press directly, Harper defended both actions. All his ministers are new, he said, and he wants every public statement to reflect uniform governmental policy. This necessitates central control of all public statements. As for the Cabinet meetings, they are constitutionally "private," not public, and should be treated as such
This implicit one-finger salute to the Ottawa media must, of course, have been a carefully considered decision, probably reached, like many of Harper's decisions, long before he took office. He knows that he owes journalists no thanks whatever for his election, and that during the remarkable five years when he gained the leadership of the right, and unified it into a force capable of forming a minority government, the media in general jeered and deplored him at every step.
So what hope, he will have reasoned, did he now have of securing their unbiased coverage once he had formed a government? The answer is none whatever. By winning the election, he had proved them dead wrong. So a hostile reaction to his government was the only thing he could expect.
Winning a majority in the next election is his uppermost objective. That election can be called at any time the opposition unite to defeat a Government Bill in the House, or whenever Harper himself decides to call it. To win it, he needs the support of the electorate, not necessarily of the media. The media always assume that a government requires the latter to gain the former, that it is they and their coverage that really decides the election.
This is the assumption that Harper has now challenged. He knows, as Macleans magazine columnist Paul Wells glumly observed, "that we're not nearly as good at rallying public opinion to our side as we are at feeling sorry for ourselves."
Indeed, Harper is no doubt gratified by the media's loud outrage. That is, he may be trying to turn their own weapons against them. Every time they write an anti-government story, the public will be inclined to conclude: This just demonstrates their hatred of the man and all he stands for. So instead of hurting the government, bad publicity will have the effect of vindicating him. He said they were out to get him, and now look what they're doing. Bad news, as it were, becomes good news.
The initial public reaction was divided, the liberal Globe and Mail published four condemnatory letters, the conservative National Post published three siding with the government, one of which voiced precisely the response Harper doubtless hopes for:
Oh those poor, poor reporters. They are shunted aside and ignored – no more self-absorbed men and women with an exaggerated sense of self-importance to breathlessly report out-of-context snippets and ministerial misstatements. How our understanding of the world will suffer, without the scrums, the jostling, and the total disregard for substance. Now these poor wretches may actually have to do some serious analysis.
Thus, the government's strategy is to depict the media, not as observers of the game, but as players in it, zealously intent upon making points and scoring goals. In this way, media bias gradually destroys media credibility, and the press become the enemies of the truth rather than the purveyors of it. But did Steve Harper actually figure all this out before he was even elected? To those who know the man, it's altogether likely.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
ping
I'm sorry, but this just smacks of Soviet-style 'Ministry of Information' tactics that will sanitize the reports rather than calling for honesty in the media. Not good.
Naw. The present generation of journalists are simply idiots. How would you like everything you say filtered through an I-pod connected doofus?
Its called knowing the enemy.
It's too much to copy & paste here, but our friend Kate at SDA:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/
has a variety of posts regarding this.
Be sure to read the "comments" sections- wit, sarcasm, fact-checking, useful URLs to follow, and a few trolls, shills, and disruptors.
You'll feel right at home...
I'd prefer no filtering. Harper may be a good egg, but he's just put a dangerous control tool into the hands of any dishonest would-be dictator that may follow him. Limiting abuse of power by the press is one thing if its' become an enemy of the state. Limiting the power of your own cabinet to speak candidly to the public is quite another matter. Daylight is no enemy of conservatism, IMHO.
Nevermind that the media does that on their own. Filtering of information that is. Take here in the States for example. For all we know, Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket, when in reality, it's not, and the media bitches they can't move about freely, when they're embedded with the fricken enemy of freedom and democracy.
They need to get their message out and bypass the media. Also a training course on how to interact with the media and prepared talking points.
They are going to face a hostile media no matter what they do, but they shouldn't shut down media acccess to government.
The media just isn't that hard to outsmart.
Who's fault is that?
Long before hi-tech, reporters behaved like a mob. The difference is they used to know they are only hacks and even took pride in it. Journalism schools increase their hatsize by adding the to the fat on the outside of their skulls.
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True, but few conservatives are as skilled at press relations as Ronald Reagan. He was a skilled actor with an extensive resume as a public speaker, before he was ever elected to public office. Reagan also still benefited from the old dinosaurs that believed that they needed to at least up hold the appearance of impartiality, and that the story was more important than they were, something that is increasingly rare these days in the MSM.
The cabinet hashes out its differences in cabinet meetings, the content of which are secret, and then presents a united front to parliament and the public. The principle voice of the cabinet is the Prime Minister ("first among equals"). Under this system the press has no right to advance notice of cabinet meetings and the government has no obligation to submit ministers to scrums following cabinet meetings.
Parliament still gets its crack at the ministers and the press still gets to scrum them. In this system, the government benches face the opposition benches across an aisle designed to be two sword-lengths wide and the cabinet is confronted in an ancient practice called Question Period. At the start of each day's business, the opposition has an opportunity to ask questions of the government. The opposition uses question period to score points, to bring out issues and to generally harass and embarrass the cabinet ministers.
Unlike the Congressional system, the cabinet is part of the legislature and is therefore continuously subject to the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate.
The press scrums the members of parliament in daily scrums in the hall just outside the House chamber. The press focuses on the Ministers and on their opposite numbers in the opposition parties shadow cabinets. The scrums are sometimes rough-and-tumble.
There is a definite difference between a cabinet meeting and a caucus meeting. The doctrine of cabinet secrecy does not apply to caucus meetings.
The so called "tradition" of post-cabinet-meeting scrums is a recent Liberal party device between it and a tame media.
Anyway, the press has an obligation to do its own fact gathering, not merely rely on press releases and scrums.
BTW Yanks might find Hansard to be enlightening. (This is the parliamentary equivalent of the Congressional Record.)Debates of the House of Commons are not in the gentlemanly courteous style of Congress. They are neither as courtly nor as polite as we are accustomed to seeing in US Senate debates.
It is not for nothing that the opposition benches and the government benches directly face each other and it is not for nothing that the aisle is traditionally two sword-lengths wide and that the second most numerous party in the House is called "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition". Opposition is essential to a parliamentary system, the system depends on it. Trent Lott and John McCain style "bipartisanship" is foreign to the system.
A new government needs time to settle in. You have the problem of inexperienced politicians being confronted by experienced reporters who have their own agenda. Harper is understandably cautious. What Canada needs is for someone like Rupert Murdoch to acquire some Canadian media outlets. Pity he couldn't aquire the "Globe and Mail".
Very informative. I find it refreshing that your politicians do not engage in feigned civility towards one another. Better they're fighting one another than engaging in pack behavior and feeding upon their 'flock'.
If we were to adapt this system to US politics, I might personally reduce the space between the two sides to a single sword-length, and require that they arm themselves. It would make for better theater, and the only laws that would get passed would be those that a legislator would risk his life to see writ (not to mention improving the species by engaging in a bit of self-imposed 'ethnic cleansing').
'Bipartisan' is indeed the most frightening adjective in the US vernacular. It's double-speak for 'the tyranny that one party could not possibly impose upon the electorate without the active collusion of the other'.
I'd agree with you if the press was fair and balanced. The PM is simply telling his aides not to consort with the enemy - and they are that - without prior approval. It's a reasonable strategy to adopt when at war.
bttt [chuckle]
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