If you thought that Donald Trump's war on the media couldn't happen here, think again. Alex Boutilier writes in The Toronto Star:
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s office has revamped its communications team to provide a more rapid response, war room-style operation. And they have not been shy about calling out reporting they don’t like.
At a rally in downtown Ottawa last Sunday, Scheer said he would stand up to “the media” and accused journalists of siding with the Liberals in the carbon tax debate.
“We don’t always get the same kind of coverage that (Trudeau) gets in the mainstream media. Have you noticed that?” Scheer asked supporters.
“(Trudeau has) got the media on his side, he’s got the pundits, he’s got the academics and think-tanks, everyone who wants to lecture you on how to spend your own money and how to live your own life.”
Members of Scheer’s caucus, too, have joined in. On Thursday, finance critic Pierre Poilievre called a journalist for the Bloomberg business wire a “Liberal reporter.” The same day, Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos accused Maclean’s columnist Paul Wells of being a “liberal” masquerading as an independent journalist. Earlier this year Michelle Rempel, the party’s immigration critic, suggested the Canadian Press newswire took marching orders from the Prime Minister’s Office.
I suppose it was bound to happen. We seem to ape everything that gets its start south of the border. That means, of course, that journalists are going to be attacked. And the wingnuts of the right will be vociferous:
Andrew MacDougall, who served as director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper and who now writes columns for Canadian newspapers, said these attacks on the media are a deliberate strategy to energize the Conservative base.
“(The 2019 election) really will be an elite, or an establishment, or an opinion-forming establishment against the Conservatives (and that’s) what they’re trying to gin up,” MacDougall told the Star.
The relationship between Harper and the national press was notoriously chilly. And Scheer appears to be taking the feud a step further as he approaches his first election as Conservative leader.
The issue which is driving all of this is the carbon tax:
“The carbon tax being the ultimate issue, where this is kind of a policy that’s almost universally supported by academics, economists, pundits … the Conservatives are betting that there’s more of a common-sense crowd who still have to gas up their car, who will be open to a message that this is elitism ignoring your concerns,” MacDougall said.
Former Conservative strategist Jason Lietaer also referenced the carbon tax debate, saying it’s a sore point for Conservatives that most of the reporting on the issue puts the Liberals’ plan in a positive light.
But the Conservatives have no plan. Given that fact, their strategy is simply the best defence is a strong offence. It's yet another sign that the Conservative Party of Canada is intellectually and morally bankrupt.
6 comments:
“Both sides” now is the same old crap that Sun TV News peddled: In consideration of any question there are two sides and only two; you’ve got to take one of those sides; and if you don’t concur with the side that we’ve taken in every respect that we demand of you, you’re against us. Asking questions suggests uncertainty. We’re certain of everything and you’ve been so advised. Your uncertainty is therefore disagreement. And of course, because we’re always right, that would make you wrong and, because we’ve told you what’s right, dishonest. Did you get that? Wait a minute. That’s not enough. Some cheerleading would be nice.
Life has always been complicated and, therefore, confusing, John. These folks suffer not from certainty but from certitude. And certitude is the enemy of truth.
I once believed that our society was sufficiently cohesive that it was naturally self-correcting and that extremist manipulations would be popularly rejected. That was what kept the worst instincts in check.
What we're seeing in the US is the breakdown of the forces of moderation. Today's massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue is a consummate hate crime, another right-wing atrocity. What else did they expect from a self-debased, mentally unstable, dog-whistle president?
It was just a few days ago that I left this comment on your blog: "I can't see this being settled with words, Owen." Since then we have been introduced to the dark soul of Cesar Sayoc and, now, the human malevolence, Robert Bower. The Republicans won't stop this right-wing rampage that they nurtured for their partisan advantage and I can't see how the Dems will do much better.
Domestic terrorism is on a pretty rapid increase in the Hateful States of America. Some of it is Islamic-related but two thirds of it is good old boy, right-wing extremism - white supremacists, anti-government militias, Team Trump. It's positively rabid and there's no way to reason it away, perhaps not even to put it down.
I agree with you, Mound. It's been fifty years now since I left Montreal to study in the Old Confederacy. I foolishly assumed that, with the election of Clinton and Obama, the good ol' boys had died off. I was mistaken. They are alive, angry and on the march.
Let’s not credit Trump for something that is just bog-standard conservatism as practiced on both sides of the border for decades already. Targeting the “liberal media” has been part of the playbook for as long as I can remember. Lest we forget, Harper was infamous for limiting press access to himself and his cabinet and made getting information out of the government a tedious and oftentimes futile process. During the last election, Conservative candidates were discouraged from giving interviews and his own campaign stops were designed to keep reporters and anyone else who might disagree with him away. I’m pretty sure he also used the excuse that he wanted to “connect directly” with people without the filter of the biased media. Scheer is just following the same playbook.
No doubt Trump is having an effect in driving more right-wing extremism out of the shadows and into the mainstream, but again, that’s more a symptom of where the right has already been heading with the accelerator pressed to the floor, not some weird new cause that only showed up with Trump (or Ford, or Kenney, or any of the other Canadian Trump wannabes).
I take your point, BJ. This is nothing new. But there is the matter of degree. The level of vitriol is growing.
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