I’m the featured journalist this week in a recurring feature in The Hill Times known as “In the Hotroom”. The Hill Times, a weekly paper here which focuses on the business, gossip, and ins-and-outs of life in Parliamentary Precinct, profiles Hill journalists from time to time and, before Christmas, their reporter Harris Macleod and I had a conversation which is reproduced pretty faithfully in the paper.
The headline over the piece, though, reads:
“Why Akin disputes Conservatives are a non-media friendly governnment”
I’m not so sure that the headline actually matches what Harris reported I said in the piece. So, for the record, here’s the key q-and-a here:
AKIN: “I arrived here in January of 2005. … I replaced Joy Malbon. Joy is in our Washington bureau now and I inherited Joy’s beats, one of which included the Conservative caucus.
MACLEOD: Is that a challenging beat, since this is a fairly non-media friendly government?
AKIN: No, and I’ve always disputed that they’re a non-media friendly government. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I think governments generally are not media-friendly. Liberal, Conservative, you name it, governments – by definition – want to hide things from us . . .
So, my point, which perhaps I could have made more forcefully, is that all governments are not media-friendly, including the current one. That’s not new — and journalists who complain about that just have to be a bit more creative in digging stuff up to challenge any government’s line-of-the day. Happily, I’d say that about 90 per cent of the Parliamentary Press Gallery’s membership are the kind of journalists who do just that.
That’s not new — and journalists who complain about that just have to be a bit more creative in digging stuff up to challenge any government’s line-of-the day. Happily, I’d say that about 90 per cent of the Parliamentary Press Gallery’s membership are the kind of journalists who do just that.
I think you're giving your peers way, way too much credit. =)