Pie Palace

Years ago, I contributed policy to the Green Party of Canada on media. In it, I stated (words to the effect of) “media is a business like no other, it has a responsibility to be profitable, but more importantly, it has the responsibility to hold our public offices to account.” The policy items were my rough attempt to discourage the rise of large media conglomerates, and to support regional media outlets.

Yesterday, one of CTV shut down evening newscasts in Ottawa, and did similar things in Barrie, London, and Victoria. In doing so, they have cost Ottawa yet another media outlet, and yet another avenue for paid journalists to keep our politicians, bureaucrats, and corporations honest. Coincidentally, kottke.org has linked to a story describing how the cuts to Baltimore’s daily newspaper has made the police force less accountable:

Half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit — these are the wages of a world in which newspapers, their staffs eviscerated, no longer battle at the frontiers of public information. And in a city where officials routinely plead with citizens to trust the police, where witnesses have for years been vulnerable to retaliatory violence, we now have a once-proud department’s officers hiding behind anonymity that is not only arguably illegal under existing public information laws, but hypocritical as well.

And this isn’t just an American problem. As the Dziekanski enquiry is proving, Canadian police reports can sometimes differ dramatically from reality. Without an engaged, and well funded press, there will be no one to hold these officers to account.

What solutions do we have? A CRTC-mandated carriage fee for cable broadcasters? Preferential tax treatment for smaller news organization? Increased funding to public broadcasters? There are solutions, but we, as an electorate have to wake up to the fact these cuts don’t just cost jobs, they are a danger to our public institutions.

The election has begun. And we’re already being let down by our media and our current Prime Minister. Let’s consider a line of questioning on CTV Newsnet coverage (around the 7:30 mark).

Let’s consider the exchange from two angles:

First, there’s the consistency angle. As much as Harper dislikes the Senate, he happily appointed Conservative insider Michael Fortier to the Senate in 2006, and then appointed the unelected Fortier to his cabinet. If Harper feels so strongly about the Senate, why is he appointing unelected people to the senate?

Second, let’s consider Tom Clark’s response. Instead of calling the Prime Minister to task on his inconsistency, he happily skates over the statement and instead asks Harper about hypotheticals (and later asks Harper to promise that he won’t get personal).

It’s easy to see why voters become cynical. The Prime Minister has ignored the spirit of his 2006 election platform, and isn’t being held to task for it. In a rare interview, a journalist has the opportunity to take him to task, but opts instead to drop the name of his media outlet, and ask an essentially meaningless question. Reporters have a responsibility to their viewers – they shouldn’t let a politician get away with this kind of dishonesty.

This is going to be a long election.
(Update: Fixed spelling mistake in title)