By Gudrun Schultz
June 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper identified Ottawa based journalists with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as “problem” media elements, in an interview with the Western Standard last week.
Discussing recent media conflict over the decision by the prime minister’s office to structure press gallery question periods, bypassing the traditional media scrum scene, PM Harper said “the key journalists causing the problem are from CBC, but strictly the ones in Ottawa.”
Under the new rules, each journalist is called on in order from a pre-set list and allowed two questions. That has triggered an attempt by a few “left-wing ideologues” to control the press gallery by muzzling some journalists during press conferences, Mr. Harper told the Standard.
“When we first started doing this and were doing this, the majority of journalists loved it,” Mr. Harper said. “But of course, the problem was that we were getting our message out and a small number of ideologues didn’t like that. So they’ve now basically forbidden all of their colleagues to ask questions, which I think is a fascinating use of press freedom when a small number of journalists can tell others they can’t ask questions at a press conference. But that’s the position of the left-wing ideologues who are apparently running the show.”
“We’re not trying to pick a conflict,” he said. “When questions were being strictly screamed or shouted, we found that in the end only one or two journalists were asking 90 per cent of the questions.”
Mr. Harper said the ongoing strife over media control has had the positive effect of exposing what he calls a media “filter” utilized by some journalists in the press gallery. “It allows a lot of people to see media reporting through a filter now; they understand that’s the filter they’re getting,” Harper said.
Last month Mr. Harper accused elements in the national media of operating under a bias against the Conservative government, saying, “the press gallery at the leadership level has taken an anti-Conservative view.” PM Harper made it clear that his government values the coverage offered by local media outlets and is largely unconcerned over the ongoing strife with the national media.
“The real long-term effect of this may be to break up the gallery,” he said, which he says has become too institutionalized. “I think if we can break that up in any way, that is helpful for democracy.”
The Conservative government is significantly ahead in the polls with 38 per cent support, according to a Decima survey from June 1, reported the Standard. The poll showed the Liberals at 29 percent and the NDP at 21 percent.
See Western Standard original article:
https://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=1783
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Canadian Prime Minister Says Media has Anti-Conservative Bias
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/may/06052501.html