Shame on the Tories for media manipulation

Commentary by Mac Olsen

So, which media outlets get exclusive access, and which ones have to beg for scraps? If you were following the “spin doctoring” the Tories were engaging in over the dispute about whether they violated federal election finance laws, you would see they were restricting access to certain media outlets in a briefing that occurred in Ottawa April 20. This was not a case of one reporter or media organization receiving exclusive access or confidential information from an unidentified source. This was an event orchestrated by the Tories. They picked and chose who had the right to attend. Earlier that week, after receiving a search warrant, Elections Canada conducted a raid on the Conservative Party’s headquarters looking for certain documents and information. The Tories are accused of violating the federal Elections Act by “incurring election expenses that exceeded the election spending limit” by $1.1 million, according to the CTV News website, CTV.ca. The court order was unsealed in an Ontario court April 21, but the Tories held their “briefing” in Ottawa with selected media a day earlier. Party officials spoke to the selected reporters for 45 minutes before showing them the court document. The Tories were trying to get out “their side of the story,” but they only invited media organizations like the Toronto Star and CTV News. They excluded others, such as CBC News, Canadian Press, Maclean’s Magazine and Canwest Global Communications Corporation. This is one of the most blatant attempts at manipulation of the media, if there ever was one! The Tories should be ashamed of themselves for trying to restrict media participation on the subject. “Basically, it was an effort to pre-empt the release of the documents today and to give their spin,” said CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife on April 21. “The media who were not invited, somebody tipped them off, and so they arrived at the event and were knocking on the door and it sort of became a farce.” According to the CBC News website, cbc.ca, “Giving some reporters a briefing before Monday’s (April 21) court release of the warrant allows the party a chance to shape the story, but it also creates the impression that the Conservatives need to spin it, (Keith) Boag said.” The Tories should issue a public apology to the excluded media organizations, and implement media communications policy procedures to ensure that, when such “briefings” are held in the future, all media organizations have the opportunity to attend and ask fair and sometimes “hard” questions that are not suppressed by the “spin doctors.” The Tories may not have been able to reduce the political or public backlash, but at least it would not have appeared that they were trying to manipulate the media or hide something. This is not to say that political parties do not have the right to defend or advance their own legitimate interests. They do. They also have the right to put in place media spokespeople or “spin doctors” to get their messages out. Corporations and government agencies do the same thing. However, if they want to avoid media/public relations disasters, then their media communications policy procedures have to ensure fair and unfettered access. Otherwise, freedom of the press and the legitimate right to question and criticize government policy or political parties could be in danger.

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