Conservatives should stop the media-bashing

It’s time for Andrew Scheer and other prominent Canadian Conservative politicians to call a truce in their phoney war on the country’s media.

With less than a year before the next general election, the federal Conservative leader might be tempted to demonize journalists as a way of discrediting their message, while delivering his own spin on current affairs to gullible voters.

Indeed, he may believe scapegoating one group can rally another, or even that talking tough to the media will persuade some commentators to back off in criticizing the Tories.

It’s Scheer who should back off. There’s an escalating Conservative campaign of attacking the nation’s mainstream media that could take us to places we should not go in this unsettled time of “fake news” and angry, polarized voters.

Consider that in a recent letter to the Toronto Sun, Scheer declared Canadians need someone who would “stand up to ... the media and the privileged elite.”

At an Ottawa rally not long after, he accused the media of being on the side of the Liberal establishment.

Others in his Conservative caucus have eagerly followed his lead. News organizations have been lambasted for their coverage, while one journalist was singled out and denounced as a “Liberal reporter.”

And according to Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, The Canadian Press news agency is nothing more than a “spin tool” of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Nor is Scheer the only member of Canada’s big-C Conservative family to play this dangerous, divide-and-conquer game. Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, as well as Ontario Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford are renowned for the contempt and hostility they heap on the media.

Ontario’s PCs have gone as far as to launch “Ontario News Now,” a social media account on Twitter and Facebook that gives the party’s version of events and helps advance its agenda.

There have always been tensions between politicians and the media that cover them. Part of that coverage means criticism, or even reports that politicians would rather never see the light of day. No one warms to an unflattering portrait of themselves that’s been hung up for all to see. So, some of these tensions are unavoidable.

In today’s divided, cynical and even paranoid world, however, political populists and demagogues are hammering journalists not because of any truly inaccurate coverage but because once their supporters stop believing mainstream media, they’ll believe anything.

The king of this strategy is U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly referred to the media as “the enemy of the people.”

Trump — and the America he has created — should provide no example for Scheer to follow. Beyond this, Scheer is simply incorrect when he accuses Canada’s media of being some kind of monolithic Liberal lapdog that cosies up to the Liberals while growling at him. They’re not his “enemy.”

Has he forgotten that most Canadian newspapers since 2006 have endorsed the Conservatives in federal elections?

Or did he miss the media-roasting Justin Trudeau received after the prime minister’s embarrassing trip to India earlier this year?

Scheer may have tried to dial things back when he agreed last week that the media are “essential” in holding politicians to account.

We hope he goes further.

The emerging pattern of Conservative attacks on the media should worry everyone who supports a free and objective press in this country.

The attacks should end.