23 November 2009
The Media, Mr. Harper and Monte
The headline on a story from page A6 of today’s Globe reads, “PM lauds press freedoms, then ducks questions”.
The story is about the PM attending the gala dinner of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada. As I read it I could almost hear the reporter stomping his or her feet in a fit of frustration.
First, you need to understand that anytime the media itself is part of a story it immediately vaults to the top of the important issues pile, at least in the eyes of…well…the media.
What is implied by the headline is that it is inconsistent to say that you believe in freedom of the press and then not have a press conference.
Hmm..I wonder if there are any legitimate reasons for the Prime Minister to not take questions after such a speech.
Perhaps as the Prime Minister he’s a busy man, and has decided to meet the media according to his own schedule.
Perhaps he wanted his message about freedom of the press to be the message that was reported knowing that if he took questions that the media would write about many other things even though nothing is more important than freedom of the press.
Perhaps the government has nothing new to say in answer to all the questions that would surely come at the PM on the Taliban prisoner issue.
As an economist who read Adam Smith the PM might suspect that the media would look to make his answers to their questions sound controversial because journalists are self interested like everyone else. After all journalists need to impress their bosses and attract readers and viewers because that is how media outlets generate advertising dollars.
The PM might believe that there are hundreds of other ways that journalists can get stories about the government that don’t involve an interview with the Prime Minister (though it is hard work to do that kind of digging).
Perhaps the PM believes that the beautiful and high ideal of freedom of the press doesn’t hinge on whether the PM takes questions from journalists at any one particular time. Perhaps he knows that the very fact that journalists will report on him not taking questions is proof that free speech is alive and very well in Canada.
One final note on all of this. I do think it interesting that an article whose tone was about the need for the Prime Minister to be accountable to the media in the name of freedom of the press was actually written anonymously. Either the Globe or the Canadian Press declined to identify the journalist who wrote the article. My question is, should journalists be publicly accountable for the stories they write? Just asking.
