Starting a new thread as the leadership conference is over.
From today's Star. Yes some will question the source, it is a Liberal friendly publication. However the content is factual.
A reporter rudely clashed with Pierre Poilievre. What happened next was the important part
Bruce Arthur – The Star – September 14, 2022
From today's Star. Yes some will question the source, it is a Liberal friendly publication. However the content is factual.
A reporter rudely clashed with Pierre Poilievre. What happened next was the important part
Bruce Arthur – The Star – September 14, 2022
There were to be no questions. Those were the ground rules Pierre Poilievre’s people communicated to the press on Tuesday, in the new Conservative leader’s first media appearance in weeks. He’ll give a statement, and you can watch.
Some media were grumpy. David Akin, chief political correspondent for Global News, thought this was unacceptable. According to sources in the room, Akin told Poilievre press secretary Anthony Koch, “We’re not his f------ stenographers. And you can tell him that.”
Akin is known as the kind of reporter who shouts questions whether you asked for them or not, though usually not in the middle of a statement; he did not respond to a request for comment.
He barked at Poilievre as he spoke, asking if he would take questions afterwards; Poilievre, rattled enough to revert to his instincts, called Akin a Liberal heckler, even after Akin identified himself. Akin kept on, and Poilievre agreed to take two questions in midstream. Nobody came off particularly well.
OK, fine. Akin was overly combative, even if it got results; he would later apologize for being “rude and disrespectful.” Poilievre seemed to have been thrown off-balance. Media dustups happen all the time: they just aren’t always broadcast live.
But what happened after the brief tussle was the important part. Koch tweeted that Akin had told him to tell Poilievre to “go f--- himself.” And Poilievre’s fundraising email later that night claimed Akin, whom the email identified by name, was hurling obscenities, and said, “The media are no longer interested in even pretending to be unbiased. They want us to lose.”
Not only was the incident used to smear the media and gin up anger, the incident itself was misrepresented, and Akin himself — who has worked for conservative outlets such as the National Post, Sun Media and the Sun News Network, and whose outlet receives no government funding, unlike newspapers — was branded an enemy.
Fomenting anger at the media is a lazy but effective trick to consolidate support and blur reality: it’s used everywhere from conspiracy theorists to Donald Trump to the people who sell miracle diets. (Here’s what THEY don’t want YOU to know! Or, as the Poilievre email said, “This is what we’re up against.”)
Poilievre doing it this way, three days into his leadership, tells you a lot.
Poilievre, of course, chased PPC and convoy votes in his leadership triumph, and that group is explicitly, angrily anti-media. Poilievre’s choice for House leader, former party leader Andrew Scheer, spent his leadership farewell speech calling for Canadians to read right-wing content mills, and said earlier this year, “(Poilievre) is not going to listen to our enemies on the left. Our enemies, the media.”
So this is probably how it’s going to go. Attacking the media is a strategy to go with the promise of defunding the CBC and cancelling the federal media subsidy. (There is plenty of conservative media in Canada, by the way, and some of it takes the subsidy, too.) Poilievre, meanwhile, won the leadership by reading the anger in his party better than anybody else, and he might have to keep that emotional appeal high for up to three long years. Which means we in the media aren’t ready for what is coming for us.
It will be a challenge. You can absolutely call for better media coverage. If one politician is less truthful than another and is covered honestly, it can look like that politician is being attacked. If that politician declares media an enemy, the temperature goes up.
All journalists can really do is avoid unnecessary fights, and do the work. If you want to know why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn’t heckled mid-statement, the short answer is that while the prime minister often gives answers full of infuriatingly empty calories, he has a track record of answering questions. The general lack of transparency in his government is a real issue, but he shows up.
Meanwhile, in all their anti-media rhetoric, the Conservative party never talks about the fundamental importance of a free press to a functioning democracy. Seems like a tell.
One of the questions Poilievre did eventually answer was about Quebec MP Alain Rayes, the former deputy leader who left the Conservative caucus in response to Poilievre’s ascension. The party encouraged voters to call and demand Rayes’ resignation, and the MP’s office is now being swamped with harassing calls.
Inventing enemies is a feature, as it turns out, rather than a bug.
Some media were grumpy. David Akin, chief political correspondent for Global News, thought this was unacceptable. According to sources in the room, Akin told Poilievre press secretary Anthony Koch, “We’re not his f------ stenographers. And you can tell him that.”
Akin is known as the kind of reporter who shouts questions whether you asked for them or not, though usually not in the middle of a statement; he did not respond to a request for comment.
He barked at Poilievre as he spoke, asking if he would take questions afterwards; Poilievre, rattled enough to revert to his instincts, called Akin a Liberal heckler, even after Akin identified himself. Akin kept on, and Poilievre agreed to take two questions in midstream. Nobody came off particularly well.
OK, fine. Akin was overly combative, even if it got results; he would later apologize for being “rude and disrespectful.” Poilievre seemed to have been thrown off-balance. Media dustups happen all the time: they just aren’t always broadcast live.
But what happened after the brief tussle was the important part. Koch tweeted that Akin had told him to tell Poilievre to “go f--- himself.” And Poilievre’s fundraising email later that night claimed Akin, whom the email identified by name, was hurling obscenities, and said, “The media are no longer interested in even pretending to be unbiased. They want us to lose.”
Not only was the incident used to smear the media and gin up anger, the incident itself was misrepresented, and Akin himself — who has worked for conservative outlets such as the National Post, Sun Media and the Sun News Network, and whose outlet receives no government funding, unlike newspapers — was branded an enemy.
Fomenting anger at the media is a lazy but effective trick to consolidate support and blur reality: it’s used everywhere from conspiracy theorists to Donald Trump to the people who sell miracle diets. (Here’s what THEY don’t want YOU to know! Or, as the Poilievre email said, “This is what we’re up against.”)
Poilievre doing it this way, three days into his leadership, tells you a lot.
Poilievre, of course, chased PPC and convoy votes in his leadership triumph, and that group is explicitly, angrily anti-media. Poilievre’s choice for House leader, former party leader Andrew Scheer, spent his leadership farewell speech calling for Canadians to read right-wing content mills, and said earlier this year, “(Poilievre) is not going to listen to our enemies on the left. Our enemies, the media.”
So this is probably how it’s going to go. Attacking the media is a strategy to go with the promise of defunding the CBC and cancelling the federal media subsidy. (There is plenty of conservative media in Canada, by the way, and some of it takes the subsidy, too.) Poilievre, meanwhile, won the leadership by reading the anger in his party better than anybody else, and he might have to keep that emotional appeal high for up to three long years. Which means we in the media aren’t ready for what is coming for us.
It will be a challenge. You can absolutely call for better media coverage. If one politician is less truthful than another and is covered honestly, it can look like that politician is being attacked. If that politician declares media an enemy, the temperature goes up.
All journalists can really do is avoid unnecessary fights, and do the work. If you want to know why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn’t heckled mid-statement, the short answer is that while the prime minister often gives answers full of infuriatingly empty calories, he has a track record of answering questions. The general lack of transparency in his government is a real issue, but he shows up.
Meanwhile, in all their anti-media rhetoric, the Conservative party never talks about the fundamental importance of a free press to a functioning democracy. Seems like a tell.
One of the questions Poilievre did eventually answer was about Quebec MP Alain Rayes, the former deputy leader who left the Conservative caucus in response to Poilievre’s ascension. The party encouraged voters to call and demand Rayes’ resignation, and the MP’s office is now being swamped with harassing calls.
Inventing enemies is a feature, as it turns out, rather than a bug.
. 
Comment