The parliamentary press gallery launched its latest salvo Tuesday in an ongoing cold war with the Harper government over media access and procedures for reporting on federal politics.
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.
The press has always been quick to raise its perception that Stephen Harper doesn't understand media optics, but it appears that the PPG experts couldn't master their own good press.
Walking out on a conference about such a serious subject as the Darfur horror demonstrates a lack of professionalism and a flippant disregard for the very subject about which the PPG and company have been going on for months now.
In the public eye, PPG now looks like a bunch of spoiled children, and PMO looks more professional and forbearing than before.
Worse still, it underscores the very pettiness of PPG's complaints against PMO. Its members are not being censored, fired, sued, prosecuted, fined or jailed for giving the government bad press; they aren't even being prevented from doing their jobs properly. The public will not see how a few slight inconveniences to PPG represent a threat to freedom of the press and democracy; they'll see journalists' inflated egos getting the better of them.
But in the end, PPG will come around. They always do. There's only one Parliament to cover, after all.
Source: Global TV
3 comments:
Yup, the babies are being showed for what they are, none essential. I saw the coverage, it was great because I didn't have to listen to any questions afterwards. The MSM are cutting their own throats, good luck to them.
Correction: The Parliamentary Press Gallery walked out of the Prime Minister's staged announcement yesterday. There were still reporters there, and the PM refused to take questions after his announcement. Nothing about it could be called a "press conference" as the PM didn't (and never intended to) take any questions from the media.
I don't know why Tory supporters are so shocked that some members of the press walked out of an event that was a waste of their time, and that they weren't going to be doing anything at anyway. I would think you'd be glad that there were that many fewer reporters there shouting questions at Harper that the PM refused to answer.
Honestly, the PMO ought to just tape these things themselves and distribute the announcements to the media through fax and videotape. Why people think members of the PPG need to be there to watch the PM deliver a monologue is beyond me.
TangoJuliette said...
----- Original Message -----
From: TangoJuliette
To: Toronto Star ; Lawrence Martin ; KW Record ; Globe And Mail
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 5:07 PM
Subject: Scrums, crumbs and Crumbums.
I'm betting that with all of Paul Martin's spoon-feeding of the media in the past, the poor P.P.G. dears just never got around to much of the investigative reporting they seem to think they're very good at.
While managing to say very little to nothing at all, Paul ran the Press Room's dog and pony show, to the unbridled delight of the sound-bite freaks. All the while, Paullie's pals & cronies were pillaging the cash-boxes and store-houses of the nation.
I think that most of the media darlings are still smarting for not having scooped the Globe on Adscam.
They are now faced with the slim joys of taking things out on P.M. Harper, cause now they've got to hustle their fat and booze-addled little fannies around town to get even the slightest hint of a story. That kind of pressure has got to take a vicious toll on the former cream-puff school of P.P.G. journalism. Paul Martin, the Master of Diversionary Dithering, ably aided and abetted by the creme de la creme of Canada's finest representatives of the Fourth and Fifth Estates.
Talk about prissy-hissy-fitting weenies.
And how about Jane (a.k.a. Gidget, The Gigglet, The Giggler, On Air Bimboid, Nearly Blonde, Merely Bland, Snarls and Chuckles) Taber. Is she really naturally this terminally dense--and rude? or is this trait some Pavlovian conditioning thing she picked up at the Bell Media/CTV School of Training for Yappy attack poodles? She'll never get that senatorship now, will she?
cheers:
TJ
and I'm still loving this!
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