Harper says national media are biased against him

[Vicious]

Re: RE: Harper says national

Sid Vicious and the punk movement in some aspects promoted elements of anarchy and unconformity.

Yet I read you advocating conformity to Harper's vision of Canada which would be like hearing a punk rocker tell the public for follow the direction of "the (business) suits".

The handle doesn’t make any sense for you.

I would never advocate conformity, Harper may look like an accountant in a bad suit but he wants to destroy the status quo that has existed in Ottawa for years. It's those people that want the liberals back who are defending the status quo, they are the establishment.

Always beware the quiet guy in a bad suit holding a briefcase. These are the types of people that stand in front of tanks in Tiananmen.

 

[bluealberta]

How would the type of controls that Harper is proposing have made the discovery of ADSCAM easier? So if the Liberals had the same controls over the press, they would have discovered ADSCAM sooner? You just defeated your argument.

These are the reasons why the press needs to not have such restrictions. So they can better uncover issues and it becomes less easier for the government to skirt around it.

Hey, when the discovery of ADSCAM came out, the press were on it, and grilled the Liberals all the way to their defeat. You have no leg to stand on in your complaint. They couldn’t criticize something until they publicly discovered it was being handled in a crooked fashion, and when they discovered it, they took the Liberals to task.

You want the press to be tough, and yet with Harper, you want them to go easy. You are speaking in favour of a double standard treatment when it comes to the Liberals and the Conservatives. The real bias of late seems to be coming from the Conservatives on this issue. I think we all should be talking about this Conservative bias.

“The press is free to ask questions, just as the PM is free to ignore them.”

And I just said exactly that.

We are talking about a government that wishes to restrict the questions. If they restrict some questions and only allow others, then the message is skewed to the governments control and that creates a bias.

Screw Mike Duffy. He doesn’t speak for all the press as to the interpretation of the situation. He can have his own opinion but that doesn’t make the basis for the real argument here.

I may not have made my point clear. What I was trying to point out was the liberal bias of the PG, and I do not for one minute think that the PG knew nothing of the Adscam scandal until years after it had been in operation. That, IMO, is why Harper is absolutely bang on in this issue, it is clearly showing the Liberal bias of the PG.

Duffy was speaking on a national radio program, so I would assume he was speaking with some degree of authority on the subject. Hell, I don't like the man much, I was just pointing out what he said, and yes, it still offends the hell out of me. We do not elect reporters, and they have got to come to this understanding. Report the news, quit making the news.

 

[elevennevele]

Re: RE: Harper says national

I would never advocate conformity, Harper may look like an accountant in a bad suit but he wants to destroy the status quo that has existed in Ottawa for years. It's those people that want the liberals back who are defending the status quo, they are the establishment.

Always beware the quiet guy in a bad suit holding a briefcase. These are the types of people that stand in front of tanks in Tiananmen.

You obviously don’t know enough about the punk rockers. I grew up in that period. Friends of mine were into the punk scene with the wild hair. My cousin in England was a hard core punker with the mohawk made of long 1 foot spikes and coloured green. The people of the punk scene wouldn’t advocate either the Liberal Government and especially the Harper Government. They wouldn’t even push for the NDP.

The punk scene was overall very anti government and originally formed as a backlash to the new dangers of nuclear war. However, it became more of a rebellious avenue for the younger generation against society in general, and that became dominant via dress and music. As soon as the fashion and the music became more part of the establishment and corporate structure through trend, the scene ironically defeated itself in sense and it’s meaning became lost.

Harper is so much the anti thesis of the punk movement and your strange Tiananmen connotation with Harper is so absurd a stretch. I wouldn’t have suggested such an image of heroism for any Canadian politician.

The person who stands in front of a tank is the kind of unique person who can only become known for that courage the moment the event occurs. Honestly, you insult that guy’s heroism by trivializing it to the imagined courage of a Canadian Politician who lives through no similar circumstance.

 

[elevennevele]

[quote="bluealberta"
I may not have made my point clear. What I was trying to point out was the liberal bias of the PG, and I do not for one minute think that the PG knew nothing of the Adscam scandal until years after it had been in operation. That, IMO, is why Harper is absolutely bang on in this issue, it is clearly showing the Liberal bias of the PG.
[/quote]


He is bang on doing some back pedaling.

Harper asked for a meeting with members of the national media. Says he needs to get the message out. I guess he gives up pretty easy.

Weak. Very weak. However, maybe he will eat that humble pie and start showing accountability with the press. You know, let them be able to ask questions they wish to ask of him on behalf of Canadian concerns. I'll be watching.

 

[FiveParadox]

RE: Harper's Experience

I would be happy to see The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P., the Member for Calgary Southwest and the Prime Minister of Canada, attempt to restore a degree of a good relationship with the press in Ottawa. I think that this situation is going to be another "learning experience" for this young Prime Minister.

In a sense, I suppose the Conservative Party of Canada does deserve a degree of leniency, in terms of how the Government of Canada is being run — however, there is an upcoming point at which the electorate, in my opinion, is not going to forgive a cumulative set of blunders, such as we have seen, in the future.

 

[Jay]

But the press in Ottawa should be given a free ride.....


If the Liberals were doing the same thing you guys would be saying the same thing I am.

But on a lighter note, if this is the best yall have against Harper, things are good.

 

[Colpy]

It is NOT the role of the press in Canada to hold the government to account by questioning it's actions. That is the role of the Official Opposition and Question Period.

Who says "It is NOT the role of the press in Canada to hold the government to account by questioning it's actions"?

Who decided that the press didn't have such a role? Good journalism, when it involves politics, asks any questions that need to be asked, and it is the government which then can chose whether or not it wishes to answer. However an omission is still a form of response and a result of the question at least being asked. We are talking about a government that wishes to place restriction on which questions. It’s not about whether they have a choice or not in answering them.

If they restrict some questions and only allow others, then the message is skewed to the governments control. That my friend is a bias.

If you don’t allow the question, then you don’t know what the Prime Minister’s response will be, if any. And ‘bad journalism’ would be to be left with assumptions on what that response would be, or to have to omit debate because of a lack of info to base an evaluation.

Yeah, and I should say that I don't really understand, in all honesty, why Harper has been so confrontational on this issue.

It seems to me he has made a misstep, as this makes it appear he has something to fear from reporters' questions. It is not something I would consider one of his best moves.

At the same time, I can't see it on the same level as muzzling the press. It is not a wise move, but I think it has been blown out of proportion. He should probably do some back-pedaling.

 

[darkbeaver]

RE: Harper says national

He should backpeddle all the way out of the country, it'll save us a piece of rope or the price of a cage when it comes to war crimes.

 

[bluealberta]

Re: RE: Harper says national

He should backpeddle all the way out of the country, it'll save us a piece of rope or the price of a cage when it comes to war crimes.

That may just be one of the most silly things I have read on any forum. And totally off topic.

I hope Harper and the press get along, but it does seem odd that the press' reaction to Harper not wanting to give interviews was to tell Harper that they would not ask him questions. Is that not what you all think he wanted anyway?

Dark, grow up a little, and get real. Save war crime charges for those that it really applies to. Otherwise, the words mean nothing.