Here's a thought.........

...why not ignore the government and concentrate on the "opposition", and let the "opposition" dig away at the government? Give the "opposition" all the headlines, and let the government scramble after to "explain" how it's not so.

But the way things are now, the government explains how "it's not so" even before the questions are asked - not unlike Douglas Adam's 42, but without the consideration given the latter by Deep Thought.........

No, the government is elected...

...to ensure peace, order and good government under some 'form of democracy'.

How we, the people, choose to cast our vote, or to get involved in politics, is up to us individually.

Collectively we have been stunned through the use of propaganda over the last century, and this fact is reflected through the journalism we are generally offered.

Now, the journalists are complaining (see above report) but it is after the fact -- after the bulk of them have been feeding on the press releases of the government, big business or its allies, rather than bringing the issues to the fore when they arose.

So the question is what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the press fail us and thus allowed business interests to dominate the political landscape; or did the press have no option since the bought and paid for editors controlled the job markets all along?

Regardless, at this juncture it is academic. We are all responsible for this mess we are in, and we must work together to dig ourselves free. It starts with getting informed, not misinformed or uninformed, and passing that information along. The general media is not there to help -- let's get that through our heads.

Journalists Work for Media Owners

Like most systemic failures in society, journalists are caught in the employment trap. As employees, legally they are in a master-servant relationship with their employers. The employers, who own the media, are a tiny group of wealthy families whose goals have nothing to do with democracy and investigative reporting. Reporters thus face the same conundrum most other employees face: do what you're told or quit.

While there is much talk of journalism as a "profession", it is mostly rhetoric. Professions typically work independently and not for a highly monopolized group of owners, where the employer's orders override any professional sentiment.

If journalists did work to stand together, it would be very powerful. A great idea. Journalists would quickly discover what all workers have learned in history about standing up to monopoly power. They would also realize the benefits of having your own voice and freedom. I hope journalists try and move out from underneath the grip of media ownership.

I agree with Rick W, and the

I agree with Rick W, and the journalists should boycott all Conservative/Government functions. Anything negative ('fake lake' for example) should be on the front page. Wonder how Harper would react if he has a press conference and very few people show up?

We took a wrong turn when we

We took a wrong turn when we settled for a Freedom of Information Act. Instead we should have demanded a Right of Secrecy Act so that all government information was available except that deemed to subvert national security or infringe on personal privacy.An all party committee or consent of all party leaders or some other structure could rule on the need for secrecy. As the Speaker recently ruled all MP's have the right to work for their constituents and thus must have access to information not just MPs on the government side or the PM. We all need to work together to correct this unjust situation. Any opposition brave enough to take this stand in the next election would surely sweep the polls. Canadians are not catatonic.

Government/Corporate Media

It should be obvious to most people by now the "mainstream media" in all western countries are bought and paid for by the government/corporate elite. As Noam Chomsky pointed out many years ago, their sole purpose is to "manufacture consent" for their corporate agenda. This has essentially castrated democracies around the world. To make matters worse, the escalating corporate/government assault on the educations systems in these failed democracies make it less and less likely their populations will ever figure out what is really going on. The Tea Party movement south of the border is a stark reminder that more than 40% of the US (and likely the Canadian) population is already functionally illiterate.

We must support alternative media such as The Tyee and spread the word to everyone we meet. We must take it to the streets and demand change or we are doomed to go the way of all previous civilizations.

The Romans realized they could keep the populous in control with bread and circuses. When the circuses no longer come to town and there is no more bread we will wake up. Unfortunately by then it will be too late.

Journalists Aren't Blameless

Why has it taken journalists so long to finally stand up to this bullying?
The story asks journalists to stand together and push back, stop running government-supplied material. Well, duh. Isn't that you should be doing right from the get-go?
Just to demonstrate how journalists are victims of the pack mentality, which has led to this state, they mostly all refer to the Gulf Oil devastation as an "oil spill."
It's a geyser, a gusher, a raging torrent. Words are powerful and journalists are falling down on the job.
I'm a journalist and I deal weekly with federal, and provincial, stonewalling. I've had many battles with PR flacks and yes, in the end, it's the general public who end up not getting accurate info.

Changes to laws, and media coverage of proposals, also needed

Great to see journalists call on other journalists to take a stand and change their reporting practices to counter a government's attempts to control information in unjustifiable and undemocratic ways.

However, ultimately changes to several federal good government laws are needed in order to end the cult and culture of secrecy and, overall, dishonesty -- see details at:
http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/SummaryOfLoopholes.html
AND
http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/RelsDec1609.html

It is difficult for journalists to support changes to laws, even when clearly in the public interest, because that involves taking sides on a policy issue. However, editors do it daily with their editorials.

In fact, having pushed for honest, ethical, open, representative and waste-preventing good government and democratic reforms for the past 16 years in Canada, I can tell you that the media (mainstream and independent) does not pay much attention to proposals for reform.

They are fixated on the scandal or crisis of the day, but when it comes to covering solutions that would prevent the scandals or crises from occurring, their eyes glaze over.

If, for example, the media had paid attention to the many flaws and broken promises of the federal Conservatives' so-called 2006 Federal Accountability Act, likely the Conservatives and other federal parties would have felt overwhelming pressure to strengthen the Act.

If they had, Rahim Jaffer's activities would be clearly illegal because all the secret lobbying loopholes would have been closed, and the Conservatives' delays on access-to-information requests would have been effectively prevented.

So while it is great to see some journalists taking a stand, the media overall are somewhat to blame because they have not paid attention to the systemic loopholes and flaws in Canada's government accountability systems that allow governments to continue to get away with acting dishonestly, unethically, secretively, unrepresentatively and dishonestly.

Hope this helps,
Duff Conacher, Coordinator
Democracy Watch
http://www.goodgovernment.ca

Van Isle

Likely the same way when he found out he lost the last election...........

Boycotting Harper press conferences

For those suggesting that the Ottawa press gallery stay away from Harper's staged events, the press gallery tried that a while back, I learned recently at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference. In a short amount of time Harper coopted a few by offering them 'exclusive' interviews. After a while, he'd given out enough 'exclusives' that the boycott was rendered meaningless.

a modest proposal

I'd like to see something like this:

MPs and MLAs (or their proxies) bound by law to respond substantively within 48 hours to an interview request by an accredited journalist (CAJ mbrship or similar). Unless there is a response, or press conference announced, within the 48 hours, a $1000 fine is automatically deducted from their pay for the first 24 hours after, $5000 for 48 hours, $10,000 for 72 hours. Failure to respond within 72 hours triggers a by-election to be held within 30 days, all costs (outside of campaign costs for candidates) to be borne by the party which currently holds the seat.

I'm not saying they'd have to sit down for an hour with every journalist who demands answers, but the constant litany of so-called leaders who simply deny interview requests is an affront to the people they ostensibly represent. If you can't speak to the issues and defend your positions, then get another job. You're not suited for public office.

and another thing

all fines collected would go towards running an oversight committee consisting of retired journos and politicians (no skin in the game). Any surplus would be used for scholarships for post-grad work in journalism and would be administrated by the Gov-General's office.

or something like that. :-)

Boycott

Who would of thought journalist's can cut each others throat too but in their defense I guess if their employer realized that their employee had ignored an "exclusive interview ", they would find themselves unemployed or on the traffic beat. Corporate interest (1), public interest (0).

More parallels from olden times...

Hey - this could be serious. Are we sure Stephen Harper is still around? I am reminded of those traditions where the Goddess was driven in her chariot around the countryside of Northern countries back in the Roman Iron Age, and she was always draped in a big shawl. The only certainty of her presence was through the priest's 'sense' of her being there next to him on the seat. At the end of the trip, the chariot would go back to the 'sacred island', somewhere in a lake, and the Goddess would depart till next time, and the chariot would be washed by a group of slaves, who would then be sacrificed. Only survivor was the priest. Maybe this is something of the same nature? Has anyone noticed if the journalists that are allowed in the presence of 'Stevie' are particularly myopic or deaf or suchlike? Maybe they're looking at a holographic projection or even a cardboard replica??

Information

is the lifeblood of democracy. The more that access to information is restricted, the more that democracy becomes autocracy.

One of the early signs of the change is the distortion of the press release, elevating the "importance" of a specific event (the G8gate fake lake and Tony Clement's pork barreling in his own riding), or lowering the negative aspects that will occur following a certain action (the Enbridge pipeline from the oilsands to Kitimat, and John Baird's change to the status of Canada's waterways).

So instead of just reporting that a particular Minister "is not available to comment on a story" journalists could write a lot of "conjecture" about the story, forcing the Minister to allow "false" perceptions to be published or to "correct" the misinformation.

If there is room for the Government to wiggle around the facts and the truth, then Journalism should also quit trying to be "totally subjective." It could publish several versions of the various "possibilities" and leave it up to the Government to make "corrections."

The Exclusive, Duct-taped Members of the Press

David Beers: "In a short amount of time Harper coopted a few by offering them 'exclusive' interviews. After a while, he'd given out enough 'exclusives' that the boycott was rendered meaningless."

Not a surprise due to the dire state of things in this country of late but it certainly reveals how deep the waters and how deep the solidarity in Canadian journalism these days.

In many ways it reflects the co-opted electorate as well.

A vicious circle of selling out that badly needs breaking.

Really effective journalism - investigative journalism, I would think, must come from the assuming of an outsider position/status.....

Journalists will have to figure out if they want to be real journalists.... or pretend members of an Insider Club whose dress code comes with the prerequisite muzzle....complete with its own feeding tube.

Remember Media Scrums?

Those distinctly Canadian post question period dust ups in the lobby of the Parliament Buildings. Part feeding frenzy, part bear baiting. One MP peppered with reporters' questions like a grizzly standing up to a pack of hunters. Harper's dissolution of the scrum has not only done away with a fine tradition that engendered some of the most memorable quotes in Canadian political history but has also done a huge disservice to his MPs as well. A rookie MP only ever went before a scrum unprepared or unsure of where the government stood on an issue once. And after a thorough roasting on the 6:00 news MPs made sure they did their homework. One last thing . . .I voted for a Member of Parliment. I didn't vote for a Spokesperson. We could save a lot of money by firing the lot of them.

The Stupid Lazy Media In Canada

This is ridiculous, the media are actually complaining that the Government will not tell them what is going on.

Am I getting this right?

Whatever happened to investigative journalism?

Since when was it the responsibility of government to make life easy for journalists who are too lazy or too stupid to do any real investigative work and, perhaps but not necessarily, some critical thinking.

The media in Canada refuse to tell the story of the twelve dead witnesses in the Water War Crimes lawsuit but it can be found online very easily and over 20,000 Canadians have read the story and many of them have complimented us on the Web Site and the information posted.

Twelve witnesses (nine of them judges) suddenly started dropping dead when we started publishing their crimes. It should be obvious that there is a real probablitiy that someone is murdering them.

You can read about it on the Water War Crime Web Site.

http://www.waterwarcrimes.com

Too easy

It is just too easy to blame everything on journalists/reporters (there's a difference) being in the pocket of government or industry. The public demand more and more information, ever faster, and if a reporter waits to try to confirm something, then the reader/viewer will turn elsewhere. They are also unwilling to pay for the real value of what reporting costs - and by this I mean a salary to a professional who is expected to be a machine churning out content but also to be creative. If someone doesn't answer the phone when you call, then how do you confirm a story or even a single fact? If it's a Sunday and your editor expects you to confirm something for Monday's edition, what do you do when there's nobody around? Print a half-baked story? Print a pic off the wires or contributed from a PR person (because your company won't pay for photographers)?
And I'm sorry, but the other flaw here is political commentators (most are not reporters anymore) presuming they drive all news in the country, providing endless speculation on the next political leader, the news election, etc. Want to make politicians pay attention? Ban them from the papers and focus on actual news. And retrain political commentators as beat reporters.

'Professional' anxiety - eh what?

How do you do A,B,C and D? Well, it is not the problem of all the people, who are not journalists, to figure that out. Just like it is not your problem that my widget breaks down on Friday afternoon when the service center is closed and I have stuff that needs completion within half an hour or else it'll be ruined and the day's work wasted. It is for our specific ability to solve such problems that we get professional training and receive professional pay. I man not sure of journalist's salaries, but I know most of them dress better than I do, and I have five years of post-secondary schooling and three years of practical training, plus thirty-odd years of experience and repeated knowledge update under my belt. I currently do some work that is done by no one else in BC, and have been involved previously in work that was duplicated nowhere in the world.

I have also been known to gainsay my boss and his boss, as well as do back-talking to the CEO, when on occasion my professional principles and standards were being trampled. I did not necessarily know what I would reap as a result. But one thing I know: I have never let down my real customers, whom I never met and who wouldn't know me from Adam, and who never, never were in a position to second-guess me.

And don't get me wrong, I am no special hero. The same is true for most of my coworkers, except maybe the part about talking back to the CEO.

So maybe there are some unrealistic expectations here about how easy it ought to be to make a buck in a 'professional' job, and how much self-protection one can practice in such a position.

So no, not everything is being blamed on journalists, but to lay claim to be doing a job, and then not really doing it, but going through some motions and throwing people some polished bones and calling it a day will be. with regard to half-baked information, the remedy is simple: Call it half-baked, so people know where matters are at. They have still been kept posted and know that more will be forthcoming. We the peasants of the federal kingdom of Canada are capable of discernment at least on that modest scale, fear not...

Problem solved!

The solution to this problem is real simple and I don't mean "Don't vote for him". I mean vote for someone else. Also, stand up against anything he stands for because we don't need another dictator to gain any traction like ours dictator Campbell did in BC. They are actually working together and they both have to go as there will be no listening to the citizens as long as they are running things into the ground. A list of things they are good at are: 1. Wasting our money.
2. Ruining the environment.
3. Squandering our resources.
4. Playing one faction against another.
5. Giving away this country's resources.
6. Destroying democracy.
7. Giving way to much power to corporations.

What they are bad at:
1. Working for and serving the citizens who elected them.

Vote and be careful how much power we put in any one party's hands!

What are journalists for?

I applaud this effort, but if journalists have to band together to let us know when a minister refuses to comment, or a critical piece of information is withheld, what exactly do they think their job has been all along?

Telling their own story

Rikia, no doubt a good journalist's job is to investigate, research and report.... and hopefully as suggested above they have enough of their own individuality and integrity to not want to be "owned"... or to be part of an exclusive Insiders Club that is spoon-fed misinformation....that they, in turn, are then expected to feed in dollops to a mostly unsuspecting public.

Where I disagree is: I see nothing wrong with journalists acting in solidarity to support "the right" of a free and investigative press. If the journalists mentioned in the comment by David Beers above had refused to co-operate in any manner with a PM who was insistent on muzzling them, if they had ALL banded together and refused Mr. Harper's exclusivity ploy.... making it clear they couldn't be bought in any way, the whole dynamics may have been changed.

It is quite clear Harper was using the old "divide and conquer" strategy.

And it worked.

If their editors then decided to fire them for NOT accepting what amounts to a bribe for exclusive privilege, that would become a story in itself....helping to reveal the authoritarian and devious nature of the PM regarding our public right to access to information...access without intimidation. Those journalists bravely fighting for freer access to information would likely find a public glad to stand beside them in solidarity as well.

Ordinarily, good journalists keep themselves out of the story, but in this case they...and their job and duty as journalists are the story.

It is vital they find a way to tell it.