Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, October 26, 2013

The Week In Review: Harper Conservatives vs. the Media = Lamest Feud Ever

Many feuds are entertaining. Whether we're talking bloody tales of yore featuring the Hatfields vs. the McCoys or contemporary Twitter nastiness between Nicki Minaj and Stephen Tyler, acrimony can be amazingly fun to watch. But these fights are only as interesting as the players are genuinely passionate, which is perhaps why the ongoing feud between the Harper Conservatives and the media has got to be one of the dullest prolonged quarrels ever.

Things heated up to a dull almost-simmer this week when Prime Minister Harper's office restricted access to the Prime Minister's speech to caucus Wednesday to photographers and t.v. camera operators. Nah nah nah boo boo boo, no reporters allowed! This of course did not sit well with media outlets, most of whom responded by boycotting covering the speech altogether. (Sun Media was the exception.) Some reporters did find an alternate venue, though: NDP Leader Tom Mulcair's caucus speech, where their presence was not only permitted, but actually encouraged. (Imagine that!) This led the Conservative party's director of political operations to compose a disingenuously outraged fundraising letter, which whined, "We knew they wouldn't give us fair coverage -- but this is a new low for the Ottawa media elite."

I hate to break it to both sides of this dispute, but the assaults being launched and the injuries being claimed in this vendetta are just too weak and inconsequential for most normal people -- which is to say, anyone not living in the Parliament Hill bubble -- to give a hoot about. Can government secrecy be a serious problem? Absolutely. So can media bias. But what we're seeing here -- the government petulantly not inviting reporters to a dull scripted event, then having reporters get on their moral high horses about how crucial their presence is at this dull scripted event so that they can report on "body language" -- is all just juvenile. At the very least, it's the makings of an extremely lame feud for which most Canadians should have little time.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.ca
Author: Marni Soupcoff

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