Jay Rosen has a compelling argument that the recently-retired Scott McClellan’s performance as press secretary was not inept or a matter of spin, but part of a continuing, determined policy of “press nullification.” Expanding on earlier posts, Jay writes:
…McClellan was a necessary figure in what I have called Rollback— the attempt to downgrade the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country. It had once been accepted wisdom that by carefully “feeding the beast” an Administration would be rewarded with better coverage in the long run. Rollback, the policy for which McClellan signed on, means not feeding but starving the beast, while reducing its effectiveness as an interlocutor with the President and demonstrating to all that the fourth estate is a joke.
As I said, Jay’s case is persuasive, which should be worrisome for the media not just in the U.S. but in Canada. I’m not ready to cry wolf, but there are signs that the newly installed Conservative minority government in this country is as concerned with message.
Here are some recent items: tight control over message; news of secret Cabinet meetings to avoid press attention; aides control over which reporters get to ask questions; and Environment Minister Rona Ambrose stopping an Environment Canada scientist from doing a talk on his novel, which deals with global warming. (The first link goes to Politics Watch’s comprehensive run down on the growing conflict between the Prime Minister’s office and the national press gallery.)
Canadian Conservatives are not, on the whole, the equivalent of that part of the American Republican Party that is currently wielding power. But the parties do share a deep distrust of the “liberal” media. And evidence is mounting that suggests control of message is a priority for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. As the situation in the states appears to be showing, nullifying the press works as well as — or perhaps better than — spinning it.
It’s something to keep an eye on, from the perspective of journalist and citizen.
TAGS: POLITICS, JOURNALISM, CANADA
The situation in the States seems rather to show that you can exploit fear and war for a long time, but that even there you risk a backlash. The Bushies are finding that out. Harper has just won office and doesn’t have a Liberal leader as his main opposition, so he naturally has a strong wave of public support for now. But the country’s not at war, so this overt effort to control the flow of news is excessive and will cost him even more down the road. He’s giving plenty of journalists strong incentives to dig deep on issues such as the urban agenda, tax-cutting as fiscal policy, human rights, etc.
And trying to gag an Enviro Canada scientist was plain stupid – the oil and global warming problems are real and worsening. Harper’s people seem to think they’re in the US of 2001. But even the Bushies’ big base of fundamentalists are now split on whether environental catastrophe means the second coming or not.
Over here in Japan, the Koizumi people have basically used the Bush approach since 2001. But they’ve needed plenty of fear (of China, of North Korea, etc) to keep that going. They also have, like the Bushies, a very inept opposition and a largely docile press. They also have citizens whose media literacy skills are so low that they don’t get annoyed at the crudest forms of manipulation.
Perhaps Canada doesn’t have enough of these apparent prerequisites to let the Harper people get away with building Texas on the tundra.