The cost of access

What do journalists give up in order to get front door treatment by pols and their handlers?

By: Parliament Hill correspondent Mark Bourrie

  On the evening after Groundhog Day, the members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and their dates will settle in for a night of funny speeches, drinking and dancing at the National Conference Centre.
  Few of the dates will be spouses or partners of the journalists. They'll be top politicians and senior aides from the Prime Minister's Office. The "date's" position on the political food chain determines the quality of the table, and the top Ottawa journalists - bureau chiefs of the TV networks, the Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star - get first shot at the political heavies.
 

Journalists like to travel with a winner, and the most senior reporters are assigned to the Prime Minister's plane

  It's the game of access. The top politicians and their staff want the ear of the media, and the media wants the trial balloons, planned leaks and gossip tidbits that give them lead place in the pack.
  Right now, on the Stockwell Day and Jean Chretien campaign planes, the cozy relationship between reporters, politicians and staffers, is being cemented. Many journalists like to travel with a winner, and the most senior reporters are assigned to the Prime Minister's plane. The second string (or, in the case of the National Post first string) are with Day, and many of them hope for an upset, momentum that would give their stories, and their careers, a boost.
 

After the 1997 election, CTV news made a video of clips from campaign busses and planes, with the Pointer Sisters' "We are family" as its theme

  The close confines of campaign busses and planes creates a bond between those who travel on them. As long as the candidate's campaign hasn't collapsed or logistics haven't been fouled up, the mood tends to be comradely. After the 1997 election, CTV's news department made a video of clips from campaign busses and planes, themes with the Pointer Sister song "We are Family".
  Some reporters, such as Susan Delacourt, formerly of the Globe and Mail, and now a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, have strong links to the Liberals. She has brought finnace minister Paul Martin as her "date" to the Press Gallery Dinner, and most of Chretien's senior ministers went to the launch of her biography of the late Liberal MP Shaughnessy Cohen.
  All Delacourt's profits went to the Judy LaMarsh Fund, which was set up by the Liberal Party to encourage more women to run for public office. Delacourt had several reasons to write the book. Cohen was a solid pipeline between Martin and the press before she died in the House of Commons in 1998 of a massive stroke.
  Later, when she re-assumed her role as a "freelance" journalist, Delacourt challenged critics to show how her journalism has suffered from her close association with cabinet ministers. In early November, she published a full-page chart in the Ottawa Citizen outlining the five major parties' stands on issues.
  While the parliamentary press corps has about 350 members, the number of reporters following leaders through the entire campaign is much smaller. The cost is prohibitive: $4,700 per week to ride on the Liberal campaign plane. In fact, much of the coverage is smoke and mirrors, since the major TV networks are "pooling" video - sending one camera operator who shares film with all the networks. Several of the networks are not sending reporters on the NDP and Tory tours, but are using the film while doing "voice-overs" of TV anchors reading wire stories.
  The prohibitive cost of following the campaign also keeps away magazine writers, academics and authors who might want to analyze the behavior of the media on the campaign.
  Access to politicians, and, almost as important, their senior staff, is precious to Parliamentary journalists. It's become even more necessary as fewer politicians do news conferences. People who are used to seeing Chretien speaking to TV cameras might be surprised to learn that the Prime Minister gave only two news conferences in Canada, and seven news conferences abroad, during the last Parliamentary term. Most of his contact with reporters is in short scrums, where his handlers are able to control who gets to answer questions and how long the session will last. "Communications" staff are not obliged to give briefings at all, and few cabinet ministers call press conferences.
  "We do it this way because it works," a senior Chretien aide says. "We have a lot of reason for disliking the press, and the public doesn't care how many press conferences we hold."
  In fact, at Chretien's campaign headquarters on Metcalfe Street, signs have been posted saying "When losing, say little. When winning, say less."

Mark Bourrie won the 1999 National Magazine Award for social affairs writing. He is a six-year veteran on the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

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