Those Poor, Poor Reporters (Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Flips Off Canadian MSM Alert)

Worldnetdaily.com ^ | 04/01/06 | Ted Byfield

[CowboyJay]

"The media just isn't that hard to outsmart."

Agreed. Their only real advantage is owning their own 'means of production'. Propaganda happens. I'm a firm believer that the government should own one unabashedly nationalist TV station so they are given an equal opportunity to demagogue any given issue with the leftists and subversives.

[RouxStir]

He probably got word that Helen Thomas was being assigned to Canada.

[Westpole]

I spend a lot of time in Canada. While many in America decry the bias of the MSM ours are tame by comparison. The bias against anything conservative anything USA anything that doesn't advance the social/liberal agenda is marginalized, mischarcterized and mocked. Take for example the issue of gay marriage (only because we are all familiar with it) Canadians generally poll about the same as Americans on the subject majority against. However no politician..not even Stephen Harper..dare stand up the liberal Canadian Courts that by fiat have decreed it. The press suggests any such move with be tantmount to an overthrow of their judicial order. There are many examples but if anything our MSM is still in the closet..theirs is out and proud. By the way brilliant tactic by Harper on stiffing the media hope it works.

[CaptainCanada]

"This implicit one-finger salute to the Ottawa media must, of course, have been a carefully considered decision, probably reached, like many of Harper's decisions, long before he took office. He knows that he owes journalists no thanks whatever for his election, and that during the remarkable five years when he gained the leadership of the right, and unified it into a force capable of forming a minority government, the media in general jeered and deplored him at every step."

EXACTLY, SO FU OTTAWA PRESS CORP..

[WOSG]

"I'd prefer no filtering. "

Er, the media IS the filtering. Harper is defeating the media filter by making more communications direct and organizing them.

Harper is 100% right on this. The media likes leaks and embarrassing hallway pounces. But that's warped, there is more reality in unfiltered Govt statements.

"Limiting the power of your own cabinet to speak candidly to the public is quite another matter."

Nothing of the sort here. Official statements need to
lined up with the leadership. Makes perfect sense, and something the US Presidents have done for years.
There is zero restriction on press here.

[WOSG]

"I'm sorry, but this just smacks of Soviet-style 'Ministry of Information' tactics that will sanitize the reports rather than calling for honesty in the media. Not good."

nonsense. It may 'smack' of something but that doesnt make it remotely comparable.

Every organization in a free media society has a press office and media contact channels, with SOP as to how member interact with those media channels, and organization statements are channelled through that office. This is true for the Red Cross, Fortune 500 companies, US Democratic Senate Caucus, The White House, the RNC, etc. This is bog-standard press management, and to suggest otherwise is absurd.

This criticism of yours is utter nonsense. The leftie media is freaking out and over-reacting because they know Harper is on to some of their tricks and is shutting them down.

[Peter Libra]

Perhaps the Prime Minister had heard the first rule when attaining power. This is a Rush Limbaugh rule. Herewith.

Do not try to make those whom you have defeated, like you

Like as in, think kindly of.

[goldstategop]

Agreed. There's all too often a disease that seems to affect conservatives after they come to power, in that they think they gain greater credibility and admiration if they move to meet the Left half-way. The problem is the Left seldom does meet conservatives half-way. I don't like the kind of politics that says you should sign away your principles before you even know whether the other side is sincere. I think Harper knows all that and he doesn't care what the Liberals think of him. That's why he's constantly surprising Canadians. The new parliamentary session beginning this coming week should show them a side to Harper they haven't seen in his Liberal predecessors. Come to think of it, I think Ann Coulter would relish the combative, take no prisoners style of politics in Canada!

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")