Canada’s MSM, liberals feeling threatened by bloggers?

Stephen Taylor, a popular blogger in Canadian blogging circles, has found out the hard way what members of the Canadian mainstream media will do when they feel threatened by a fresh face from the new media. Captain Ed gives the background:

Stephen Taylor, one of my blogger pals from our northern neighbor, has covered the Canadian parliament for quite a while, and has built a well-deserved reputation for professionalism in Canada. He requested and received access to several secure areas of Parliament Hill in order to interview various MPs from the Speaker of the House. While exercising that access by speaking with and taking photographs of his subjects, members of the Canadian press decided that they had had enough of an upstart blogger — and had him removed, passes and all:

Taylor writes:

Having completed my interviews with the stakeholders, I left and headed on over to the Rotunda where I had a friendly chat with Jack Layton. Elizabeth May and her assistant were also hanging around chatting when I saw Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc walk by. Having heard that his party was the lone opposition party supporting the budget, I asked him for an interview. He agreed. After the interview something ugly happened.

An official from the Press Gallery walked over and informed me that he had received “complaints” about me. “Thompson?” I inquired. “Complaints”, he seemed to acknowledge. I pointed out that we were currently in the Rotunda of Parliament and that my pass allowed me to be there. “But you have a camera” he informed me. He called over a security guard to escort me from Parliament.

Unbelievable!

Yes, the Parliamentary Press Gallery, with no powers granted to it by constitution or statute, used security to remove somebody who had the right to be present on the Hill granted to him by the Speaker of the House.

A similar incident happened recently when two female staffers from the Conservative Resource Group were similarly removed from the Hill by security when the Liberals complained to the Gallery.

After the incident, the Prime Ministers office called the sergeant-at-arms (who works on behalf of the Speaker on Hill security) and was told that the Gallery and Liberals were wrong to ask for the ouster of the CRG staff from Dion scrums (and scrums in general).

Of course, this brings up a few questions. If security on the Hill is the responsibility of the Speaker, and if I have been granted access to most non-privileged areas of the Hill by the Speaker, what authority does an official of the PPG have in calling in the guard to have me removed from perhaps the most public area of the Hill? Elizabeth May was also present in the Rotunda, yet she is not an elected member, nor is she associated with an elected party in Parliament. She has also been granted security clearance to the Hill by the Speaker. So, is it the camera? What is so offensive about my camera? Since I am cleared to be present on the Hill, is it because I haven’t been cleared to use one of the Press Guild’s many tools? Would May be ejected by the Gallery if she was in possession of a camera? What if I am invited by a politician to use my camera on the Hill? Is this forbidden? Was this interview with Jack Layton in the NDP leader’s office violating some unwritten rule of the media powers that be? Does the CRG/Dion Hill incident (and the aftermath) set a precedent for my presence (with camera) on the Hill? Again, why does the power reside in a largely unelected, unaccountable body of Parliament that is not defined by statute? I’ve made a sport out of taking on institutions with artificial and inflated senses of entitlement, maybe the Press Gallery is next.

Heheh. More power to you him. Our press here in the US takes issue with bloggers here all the time (it all started with an ‘innocent’ comment from Jonathan Klein about “Bloggers have no checks and balances . . . [it’s] a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas” back in September 2004) because they obviously feel threatened that their information monopoly is in jeopardy, but I haven’t heard of an incident happening here that is remotely similar to what happened to Stephen.

Jay Currie sums it up:

Elizabeth Thompson, a scold at the Montreal Gazette, seeing her job ending before her eyes, tattled to Parliamentary President Richard Brennan who got security to ask Steve to leave the foyer area where the post budget scrums were occurring.

[…]

What is actually happening here is, as legacy media sees its market share fall off a cliff and its credibility evaporating faster than a Liberal election promise on a globally warm day, the PPG is beginning to realize that only its monopoly on access can keep it in business. And if you want to keep a monopoly you have to actually act to enforce it. The airheads and the partisans and the scolds who make up our so called national media are acutely aware that Steve, with a few hundred dollars worth of equipment and a loyal readership, is building a national, personal, brand that virtually none of the losers writing for single city outfits like the Gazette can ever hope to attain.

Indeed. I don’t know what the numbers are for mainstream media newspaper circulation there in Canada, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s like it is here, as heavy distrust of the MSM is not just limited to the US.

Blogs, in part, have filled a void left open by news outlets that have forgotten they’re supposed to report the news, not push an agenda. People are not only turning to TV and radio talk shows, but blogs as well, as they have emerged as a force to be reckoned with ever since Rathergate, in which we saw bloggers destroy the credibilty of one of CBS’ most popular anchors all over a forged memo we were supposed to believe had been written during Bush’s National Guard days.

Rock on, blogosphere!

Related: Speaking of blogosphere issues, Michelle Malkin blogs this morning about how liberal female bloggers seem to have all of a sudden discovered that web misogny isn’t just directed at conservative lady bloggers, but lefty female bloggers, too. Of course, as Michelle notes, they won’t say a word when hateful misogynistic comments from one of their own liberal females is directed towards a conservative female, but then again, liberal double standards are about par for the course.