J-Source

Is Harper immune from Murdoch-style scandal?

There is no way Stephen Harper will become embroiled in a Murdoch-style scandal à la British PM David Cameron, according to a series of analysts interviewed in a recent Canadian Press story. There is no way Stephen Harper will become embroiled in a Murdoch-style scandal à la British PM David Cameron, according to a series…

There is no way Stephen Harper will become embroiled in a Murdoch-style scandal à la British PM David Cameron, according to a series of analysts interviewed in a recent Canadian Press story.

There is no way Stephen Harper will become embroiled in a Murdoch-style scandal à la British PM David Cameron, according to a series of analysts interviewed in a recent Canadian Press story.

As the CP story puts it:

"As the lurid phone-hacking scandal unfolds in Britain, the prime minister's handlers have another reason to be thankful for Harper's hostile attitude toward journalists: it immunizes him against any suggestion that a similar scandal could happen in Canada."

The story goes on to quote one insider, who "scoffs": "I would love to see that headline — Harper influenced by media … It would go counter to the narrative that some media have been pushing for a decade."

Cameron, says the story, "can only wish he'd emulated Harper's example." If he had, the article suggests, maybe Britain's political class wouldn't have been so cozy with the media — and the scandal may never had happened.

After all, CP notes, Cameron has been forced to reveal he's met 26 times in 15 months with top executives of Murdoch's News International. In five years, Harper has only met with news executives three times — twice with Quebecor's Pierre Karl Peladeau.

On top of that Canada's political elite just doesn't need its media in the same way; Canada can broadcast political advertising, while the UK cannot.

What's more,  Harper's former chief of staff Ian Brodie, tells CP: "Canadian newspapers are such a niche market — so few people actually read most of them — that they just don't have the impact in Canada that News of the World did in the U.K. … The only paper with a big circulation is the Toronto Star and … it's only really influential in Liberal circles."

Then, there's style.

There just isn't a market for, or a tradition of, cut-throat tabloid journalism here,  Carleton University journalism professor Paul Adams tells CP. But that isn't always a good thing: "I think our habits of deference can sometimes mean that our journalism seems to lack edge."

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