Government-run Media Centre Shelved, Says Canadian Government
Well, that didn’t last long.
No sooner did the media uncover a federal government proposal to establish a government-run media centre, than the Canadian government announced the project had been shelved.
Plans for the new location for Parliament Hill news conferences and other media relations activities were part of an access to information request by The Toronto Star. The centre would have increased security, and increased government control over media access to news conferences and possibly sound and video feeds.
The issue of who controls the media’s actions in Ottawa has been a subject of debate between the Ottawa Press Gallery, which insists on choosing who can ask questions in an official news conference, and the Prime Minister’s Office, which has all but boycotted official news conferences in the National Press Theatre venue.
Says The Star: "Harper’s opponents ridiculed the project yesterday. A government-run press theatre would provide a lot more control for the PMO over who gets in, and quite possibly what gets filmed and broadcast."
The blog posts and editorials I saw about this story were suspicious of the motives behind such a centre.
Tags: canada, politics, media, ottawa press gallery, stephen harper, news conferences
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POSTED IN: Communication Tactics, Executive Mindset, Media Relations, PR Tools, Spin
1 opinion for Government-run Media Centre Shelved, Says Canadian Government
b5media - Making Your Vote Count
Nov 5, 2007 at 6:38 am
[…] And it’s not just the US facing election time issues, Eric Eggertson notes that the Canadian government thought better of replacing the independent national press gallery media cen…. […]
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