Ignoring media requests a winning strategy

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This article was published 04/08/2015 (3744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair wasted no time demonstrating how much Canada’s political landscape has changed.

It was Sunday and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper had just triggered a federal election. Mulcair, a surprising front-runner in this campaign, made his opening remarks about the election standing at a waterfront podium in Gatineau, Que.

Mulcair hammered away at Harper and the Conservatives, and pronounced the NDP “ready for change.” When his brief remarks were over, Mulcair turned to his right, paused for a moment, and then walked away from a throng of journalists who were covering his campaign.

It was an unexpected development. Most journalists expected Harper to keep journalists on a short leash, and he did not disappoint; the Tory campaign allowed only five questions following Harper’s speech Sunday, with no followups.

However, even journalists all too familiar with the Tory approach to managing media were shocked to see Mulcair, the official Opposition leader, blowing off the traditional post-remark question-and-answer period with reporters.

Bypassing media questions is clear evidence Mulcair has adopted a tried-and-true strategy for campaign front-runners, which is to avoid unguarded or unscripted moments as much as possible. That means detailed advance work prior to campaign events to ensure only diehard supporters are in attendance. It also means keeping the candidate far from pesky journalists.

It’s hardly a new strategy. During the 1997 federal election, I watched as prime minister Jean Chrétien’s handlers repeatedly denied journalists travelling on the Liberal campaign plane any opportunity for a sit-down interview. However, they allowed one-on-one interviews with local TV journalists during campaign stops.

This was a maddening situation for the political reporters travelling with Chrétien. Denied any opportunity for an in-depth interview, journalists were nonetheless forced to sit in a windowless room in the bowels of a local TV station and watch a feed of the newsreader or perhaps the weather person interviewing Chrétien with probing questions such as, “How has the campaign gone so far?”

Situations such as this are frustrating for journalists. The parties know news organizations will cover the election campaign whether or not they get interviews with the leaders. The parties take advantage of this to eliminate risky one-on-one interviews and attempt to force journalists to report only what they hear in stump speeches or read in news releases.

Although all parties have employed this strategy, for most of the last decade the Tories have been masters of it. Face-to-face interviews with Harper during elections have been few and far between. Tory campaign strategists require journalists to register and receive credentials for campaign events, even if they are not travelling with the campaign. Scrums and other spontaneous exchanges between candidate and journalists have become increasingly rare.

It should be mentioned Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is no stranger to this style of media management. Through much of last year, while Trudeau and the Liberals led most opinion polls, he rationed media access, agreeing to precious few sit-down interviews and tightly scripted public appearances.

On Sunday in Vancouver, however, Trudeau took a different approach.

In his campaign kickoff, Trudeau mocked Harper and Mulcair for limiting or avoiding reports, and promised he would answer any and all questions the media had for him. On Monday, he was doing live interviews on the cable news channels, the only leader available for that kind of interview.

Trudeau’s newfound accessibility will endure as long as he is in third place; should he surge in the polls, one can be sure restrictions will go back up, pronto.

This kind of stuff keeps journalists up at night, but should voters care?

Even voters who regularly bemoan the state of the traditional news media would admit journalists serve a critical function during elections. Campaigns have multiple characters and complex simultaneous narratives. No voter could possibly follow a federal campaign without the work of journalists to record and publish what politicians say and do on a daily basis.

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And yet, this is not a golden age of political reporting. The number of full-time political journalists has declined, along with the number of readers and viewers. The result is a gross majority of political news available each day is superficial; short, one-sided reports that don’t offer much analysis or context.

It’s a dream scenario for any politician or party that believes an unscripted interview with a knowledgeable journalist is an unreasonable risk to take in the midst of a federal election campaign.

In a perfect world, voters would take notice of which politicians try to avoid direct contact with journalists and file that away until election day. In other words, voters would put some emphasis on a politician’s willingness to defend their ideas in interviews with journalists.

For now, voters can survey the ebb and flow of media coverage and conclude if they see any one leader doing more interviews, it’s a clear sign of desperation.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.