It is great to be recommended for endorsement by the website
Catch 22. But that’s not what this blog
is about.
This blog is about the media consortium.
Catch 22 was a 1961 novel by Joseph Heller. The
setting was a military bureaucracy where whatever you did, you were wrong.
Here’s a taste of the book:
"Catch-22 states that
agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains
whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating." Another
character explains: "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we
can’t stop them from doing."
The media
Consortium keeps playing Catch 22 on the Green Party. In 2008, when Blair Wilson was a sitting
Green MP at dissolution of the House, the Consortium said that since there were
no rules, having a seat didn’t matter.
Greens were not invited to participate.
Now, they say, you have never had an elected MP. Two Catch 22s in one sentence. Last time we didn’t have an elected MP, but
they relented after public pressure. Second,
in 2008 they said that having an MP at all was not a rule.
Last time media said I should have run somewhere else and
concentrated on winning a seat. This
time, according to one report on CBC news, the consortium thinks I cannot be in
the debates because the Greens are not running a truly national campaign
because we are making the leader winning a seat a priority. Chantal Hebert
embraced this idea as well. She suggested we are only really running in one
riding.
Not a national campaign??
We are running 308 candidates. We
have a $2,5 million campaign budget nationally (contrasted with $80,000 in Saanich-Gulf Islands). And I am going to be touring the country on a
national leaders’ tour, only it will be a bit shorter than last time.
And since when is running a truly national campaign a
criterion? Clearly, Gilles Duceppe will
not set a foot out of Quebec,
but I am penalized for spending relatively more time in my riding than in 2008.
The Globe interviewed the Consortium chair, Troy Reeb, who
said Greens will get plenty of other coverage.
“If you look at all the English news casts Wednesday night, Elizabeth May was front
and centre in all of them.” Well,
yes. Because it was news that they were
trying to keep me out of the debates.
But check any other nightly newscast and search in vain for Green
coverage. We have made a major policy
statement every day. Have you heard about any of them? Yesterday, we had a very newsworthy press
conference with the former President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission. We called for an inquiry
into the nuclear industry. Covered on
the evening TV news? No.
On Monday, Stephen Harper’s campaign came to Saanich-Gulf Islands. It was the second time in a
month that he had visited my community.
The national media bus marshalled the captive reporters approximately
five blocks from our office. Media
coverage sought out Opposition leaders’ comments on the Conservative
announcement -- NDP and Liberal. None of the national news coverage I heard
mentioned that the visit was to a riding where the Greens have a reasonable
prospect of defeating the incumbent Conservative. No one contacted the Greens for response, or
covered the response we posted.
But according to the Consortium, the debate is just one way
they provide coverage and they provide lots of other ways for our views to be
heard. If they want to cling to that
argument, then they may actually have to cover what positions and policies we
advocate.
The media Consortium seems very determined to keep us out,
but surely the CBC Ombudsman’s comments should have given them pause. So too should the fact two former Prime
Ministers support my inclusion in the debates (The Rt. Hon. Joe Clark and The
Rt. Hon.Paul Martin).
Author of the best-selling A Short History of Progress,
Ronald Wright commented:
"Democracies are rare in history; they are easily hijacked by
tyrants, and lost by neglect. Harper has got away with far too much
already. Many Canadians have little idea of the damage he has done to our
constitution and our country, though Elizabeth
May has certainly been keeping score. Now media barons are trying to shut
her out of the campaign debates. This decision is an outrage. All
Canadians, whether Green or not, are being cheated. May's clear and thoughtful
voice must be heard."
Against that, Mr Reeb has explained, “We are trying to make
good television here, after all.”
That explanation stands as wholly inadequate when measured
against the comment posted by the CBC Ombudsman, Kirk LaPointe:
I accept that this decision is not CBC and
Radio Canada's
alone to make. But it is difficult to discern how the public interest is best
served by exclusion or to find congruence in the decision and the public
broadcaster's mandate.There might be no better time for media to
demonstrate their commitment to democracy than in an election campaign. An
integral part of that commitment is an exploration of ideas and platforms, and
a valuable ingredient within that is an opportunity to present debate:
many-on-many, one-on-one, on various issues in various places at various
stages.In a relatively short campaign, every
element of coverage magnifies that commitment and every decision to include or
exclude has a magnified impact.The consortium has not elaborated on its
decision, apart from asserting that it involved journalistic principles, but
presumably press independence was a key. When media regularly park that
principle to provide content with little other function than prurient
indulgence, though, it is curious that the solemn stand suddenly surfaces.
The more I think about it, the Consortium, as novel, is less
like Joseph Heller, and more like Ring Lardner, who wrote a classic summary of
my situation: “ ‘Shut up,’ he
explained.