The PM gave exclusive interviews to news agencies that agreed to go on his news conference list last weekAny faint hope that the summer break might have cooled tensions between the press gallery and the Harper PMO was dashed after a hastily scheduled press conference on the softwood lumber agreement on Tuesday last week.
After showing up at the appointed time and place–the House of Commons foyer, not the National Press Theatre, which the PM has eschewed since the opening of the last session of Parliament–journalists found themselves waiting around for nearly 45 minutes. Eventually, Prime Minister Stephen Harper showed up to deliver a terse statement on the fate of the softwood agreement itself. Short version? It's going to the House for a vote, and yes, it's a confidence motion, so start planning your election coverage.
He then departed without taking a single question, despite the two microphones that had been set up by ever-optimistic gallery officials, and much to the non-surprise of the assembled media, who have come to expect little more when the PM meets with the press on the Hill.
The next day, however, CanWest newspaper coverage of the deal featured not one but two interviews with the Prime Minister, courtesy of the Vancouver Sun's Peter O'Neil and the Ottawa Citizen's Mark Kennedy–an enviable advantage over the CanWest chain's competitors, which had been forced to make do with the prepared statement.
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