Media Bias: Does it exist? - Part V
Part I; Part II; Part III; Part IV
This installment of the media bias question focuses on Richard Brennan, a Toronto Star reporter and currently President of the Ottawa Press Gallery. Yes that is the same organization that is “at war” with the Prime Minister.
That is a fact that the influential Brennan makes no bones about. Brennan’s bias surfaced soon after he became President of the Press Gallery. In a March 2007 Canadian Press story, Alexander Panetta covered the ejection of two young Conservative staffers from a Dion media scrum.
While conceding that it is common for political operatives to eavesdrop on media scrums, Brennan said: “(Politicians) who talk to us should know that what they’re saying will be used by media people. They should know that it is not going to be used against them.” The clear implication is that M. Dion can expect the media to carefully filter out anything potentially embarrassing. How are public statements made by an elected official proprietary to media personnel? How has this filter worked for Mr. Harper?
More recently in a Toronto Star article, Richard Brennan again took aim at the Prime Minister. In a piece about the Appointments Commission, he began his article this way: Headline: “No sign of independent appointments body” “OTTAWA–The Conservatives lied to voters when they promised a new era of accountability by ending the controversial practice of appointing partisans to federal agencies, boards and commissions…” Throughout the story he rakes Conservatives over the coals for dragging their feet on the Appointments Commission, then ends his article with one terse sentence “The Liberals also were criticized for their blatant appointments.”
What he fails to mention is the public lobotomy that the Prime Minister’s nomination for Chair of that commission endured. Nationally revered businessman, Gwyn Morgan, was prepared to do the job for $1 per year. In televised committee hearings however, the NDP introduced a motion to declare Mr. Morgan “unsuitable,” even though they conceded that he was qualified and competent. The Liberals joined the mob and the lynching party was carried out. Since then no qualified person has wanted to subject themselves to such public humiliation.
Even in a ‘worst case scenario,’ Mr. Morgan represented no threat to the process and his integrity was without question. He was drummed out because he was supportive of the Prime Minister and the Conservative party. One would almost think the point of the Accountability Act was to preclude anyone who sympathized with the governing party from consideration for an appointment! So long as there is reasonable assurance of qualification for the post, an appointee’s political affiliation is a moot point. Unfortunately Gwyn Morgan fell prey to the old backlash of partisanship.
Most telling of Mr. Brennan’s bias however is from a Liberal colleague, Warren Kinsella. Mr. Kinsella makes no bones about his own leanings, but is in many ways a straight shooter. On May 31, 2007 he wrote an article entitled, “The Press Gallery will get its revenge when it counts — at election time”
“[T]he Toronto Star’s Richard Brennan, the tough-talking new president of the Ottawa Press Gallery, is very angry” Kinsella writes. He then quotes Brennan from the Hill Times saying of the Prime Minister: “I just can’t explain what’s inside the guy’s head. I just can’t explain it, nor would I attempt to. It’s just pathological, either his hatred or his disdain for the media.”
Mr. Kinsella then continues his analysis: “’Pathological.’ Having more or less diagnosed the Prime Minister as suffering from acute mental illness, Brennan hinted at what is well underway: retribution. ‘There’s not a lot we can do, except push back, and that’s what he is going to find,’ said Brennan. ‘We are pushing back.’”
“[T]his push-back campaign is producing dividends: However much Harper moves to the centre… he gets no credit for it. He and his party remain ahead of the Liberals, marginally, but they are also far from their lusted-after majority” Messrs. Brennan and [Don] Martin can tell the Prime Minister why, if he is inclined to listen. They are pushing back. They are paying him back.”
So there it is. The Prime Minister asked reporters to keep a professional distance in order to plug the myriad of “leaks” that seemed to plague the previous Liberal administration, and they got offended. They were no doubt used to clandestine meetings with ‘unnamed government sources’ and high-priced dinners on the taxpayers dime. Suddenly they were faced with a new government determined not to give reporters fodder for a media cannon that was aimed at them. This was not nearly as much fun as hounding a wayward Conservative neophyte into embarrassing comments like they did in the 2004 election. They want to hold the PM responsible for the message, but they also want to alter the script at will.
Ultimately, the PMO and the Press Gallery have to find a way to work together. Truthfully, no Prime Minister has been more accessible than the current one; neither have they been more forthright. The problem that the Press seems to have with Mr. Harper is that he refuses to hold still while they slip the noose around his neck.
