harper's vanishing act

Reporters strike war-footing with PMO, but Harper won't be dictated by national media
Steely-eyed Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn't seem to care that the honeymoon is so over with the media.
The Hill Times, February 27th, 2006, Bea Vongdouangchanh

Members of the national media may already be on a war-footing with Stephen Harper and his staff over regular access to the centre of Canadian political power, but the new Prime Minister doesn't care.

Some newspaper columnists and reporters are flummoxed by the steely-eyed Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) who is holding imperial pressers in the Commons foyer, who fired his director of communications in a snap last week and who won't be dictated to by the national media. ...

But in a column headlined, "A Conservative Pierre Trudeau is taking charge," Globe columnist Lawrence Martin said Mr. Harper would not likely be intimidated by the press gallery.

"Like a Pierre Trudeau, he suffers from few internal doubts and will be inclined to take orders only from above--the space between his eyes and hair."

Toronto Star political affairs columnist Chantal Hébert declared in one column last week, "In the week that followed their swearing-in, Harper's controversial Cabinet recruits were left to twist in the bitter wind of a national backlash while the Prime Minister perfected his media vanishing act." ...

This led to a formal complaint from the Parliamentary Press Gallery's President Emmanuelle Latraverse. "When Charest came, they refused to do a photo opportunity because they said it was a private meeting, which we fundamentally disagreed with," said Ms. Latraverse, a Radio Canada political reporter. "They weren't having lunch and discussing their kids' hockey games. They were meeting to discuss affairs of state." ... serious questions about your definition of a healthy and transparent relationship between the government in power and the national press." ... major announcements have been in the House of Commons foyer where political staffers get to decide which reporter gets to ask questions. ...

Mr. Harper doesn't like the media, and he doesn't think he needs them either, the columnist said. "Martin's government very much cared about what was going on in the media, they were called flinchers because they'd flinch every time they saw something they didn't like," the columnist said. "Harper thinks he's very capable and doesn't need the media to carry out his agenda." ...
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