Harper Shutting Out the Media

I saw an interview last night on The Hour - one of Harper's top advisors was saying that although he's pretty much nixed the scrums, he's now meeting with the press in more formalized meetings where he's taking more questions than would normally be addressed in the scrums... didn't say whether or not these are pre-screened questions or not though...

Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968350116467

PM 'critic' sent packing
Photographer bumped from job at 24 Sussex

Was supposed to shoot for Mercer's TV comedy
Oct. 23, 2006. 05:33 AM
SUSAN DELACOURT
OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF

OTTAWA—A funny thing happened on the way to a comic spoof at 24 Sussex Drive this weekend.

An Ottawa photographer was hired, then un-hired to work with TV comedian Rick Mercer in a sketch at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's residence. He was let go from the assignment, he was told, because he'd been "critical" of Harper. The photographer in question, Dave Chan, also worked for Liberal prime minister Paul Martin and the incident revives the ongoing tension over how Harper's office has handled journalists seen as unfriendly to the Conservative government.

The parliamentary press gallery is meeting today to discuss matters of access to the Prime Minister.

Chan, an award-winning freelance photographer and husband of Martin's former press secretary Melanie Gruer, was hired by Mercer's crew to assist in a shoot at 24 Sussex Saturday morning.

But an hour or so after he got the call on Friday evening, Chan got another call from Mercer's producer, John Marshall, and was told that Dimitri Soudas, Harper's press secretary, had vetoed his presence on the assignment. Chan was told the Prime Minister's Office flatly objected to him as a critic of Harper.

"I'm really disappointed and I find their approach unprofessional. They are stopping me from making a living," Chan said.

Soudas would neither confirm nor deny on the record that he'd passed that message along to the Mercer show. Instead, Soudas sent an email on Saturday evening, simply saying: "The Prime Minister had a great time with Rick today. We agreed to provide many pictures to the Rick Mercer Report and we'll be doing so on Monday (today)."

The inference, apparently, is that Chan's photos weren't needed because the PMO would supply its own. This issue, in fact, was at the root of an earlier dispute with the press gallery — the PMO's bid to supply its own photos for use in the media rather than allowing photojournalists to take them.

Mercer himself said he wasn't involved in the preparation for the production and seemed reluctant to talk about it. Marshall was also not talking. After leaving 24 Sussex, the two boarded a plane and weren't particularly eager to discuss the incident later.

Chan, who does work for all the major national papers and is a member of the press gallery, says he is not a member of the Liberal party and has never been blacklisted for participation in an assignment in his 20 years as a photojournalist. He doesn't see how his experience disqualified him from working with Mercer on the weekend.

"As a photographer my job is to document, not provide the spin," Chan said.

(cont.)...