Here’s one I’m not sure the Canadian press can win in the short term. The continuing feud between the Ottawa press gallery and the Prime Minister’s office (it’s a control of information thing) has escalated with a mass press walkout of a scheduled announcement by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The background of the story is here. Excellent commentary on the issue is provided by Deborah Jones at Canadian Journalist, and by Antonia Zerbisias.
There are several reasons I don’t think journalists will win this in the short term. A minor one is the popularity of the Prime Minister, according to the polls, and the willingness of Canadians to give his minority government a chance to try governing.
Serious news readers are largely likely to take the side of the reporters and come out for a free flow of information. The problem is, all the stats from recent years show us serious news readers are a minority, and a shrinking one.
The unspoken contract between journalist and public isn’t broken, but it’s tattered. Readership numbers, credibility ratings, trust poll results and the like tell us that. And that’s the big reason why journalists aren’t going to win broad-based support in their fight for basic access to government. I suspect many of the public will see this as an insider’s dust-up at best, or a case of petulance by an “arrogant” unelected press corps. Most, feeling disconnected from both media and government, will likely ignore it all together.
(Long term, the press will win. We have the evidence that government can’t control message in the U.S., where George Bush successfully took on the press early in his presidency. Despite that, a string of reports on the misdeeds of his government has resulted in Bush’s approval ratings diving, and even a couple of articles suggesting history may judge Bush as America’s worst-ever president.)
I can understand the frustration of the press gallery, but I would like to see more from them. Their continuing protests and walkouts are reactive. If the reporters aren’t willing to work with the news rules (and they shouldn’t be; to give into them turns them from reporters into steongraphers), they should lay out their own new strategies for covering the governing of Canada and let the government deal with that.
TAGS: PRESS GALLERY, OTTAWA, JOURNALISM
