Questions in Canada, but Only Some Can Ask Them

[tuvor]

OTTAWA, May 28 — What if you gave a news conference and just about everyone left?

That was the situation facing Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada last week after about two dozen political reporters protested his new media relations plan by walking out.

Since the election of his minority Conservative government in January, Mr. Harper and his staff have repeatedly tried to change how Canada's news outlets deal with its prime minister. Mr. Harper's office is vetting minor government announcements, members of his cabinet have generally been off limits to reporters, and cameras have been blocked from covering the return of Canadian soldiers' remains from Afghanistan.

The issue that prompted last week's walkout was who picks the reporters who get to ask Mr. Harper questions. For decades, informal news conferences in the lobby of the House of Commons — known as scrums, after the rugby play where players pile atop one another — have been uncontrolled. In formal news conferences in Ottawa, held in a theater that is operated by the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery, a credentialing organization, journalists are selected by a member of the gallery's executive committee, which is elected by reporters, to ask questions, more or less on the principle of first come, first served.

Now, Mr. Harper's office wants reporters with questions to put their names on a list and let members of his media relations staff pick and choose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/business/media/29harper.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[leftchick]

1. has this guy been meeting with Karl?

it sounds like Harper is trying to emulate our little dictator. Next will be the backdrops.

[Kagemusha]

2. Something like that, I'm sure.

And granted the Conservatives need all the stage management they can get. But this is a free press issue to the media. No one else is going to stand up for them, so they might as well try to stand up for themselves while they can.