Journalists, please reclaim your calling
Nobody — I repeat, nobody — enjoys not being taken seriously. Who among us doesn't rage when we feel someone is giving us, or what we do, short shrift?
That goes double for members of the news media, who have been told for seven or eight months now by the leader of His Majesty's Official Opposition that he does not take them seriously.
Pierre Poilievre didn't talk to the media much during the long Conservative leadership race. He didn't want to answer questions from them during his first news conference on Parliament Hill in his new capacity, and he fundraised against the media when one of its members decided to speak over the start of his remarks on that occasion.
But here's the thing: the media takes itself seriously. Very seriously. Members view their profession as an essential cog in a democracy, a check against power, greed and malfeasance. And you know what? They're right. But now is the time for them to show us they're essential, not tell us.
The instinct when someone like Poilievre comes along is to complain about his form. To rail against his rejection of norms. But if the Donald Trump years have taught us anything, it's that the media have lost a lot of their power and people have lost a lot of trust in the media's work. The second people feel the media are on a “side,” journalists are cooked. And braying about your essentiality isn't the route back. Good work is.
As much as it might gall the reporters on Parliament Hill, the best way into Poilievre is to take him seriously. To treat his ideas seriously. To kick those tires as hard and as long as you would kick a government tire. If Poilievre claims to be the prime minister-in-waiting, then let's not wait to give him the prime ministerial treatment, scrutiny-wise.
Of course, a big part of the problem with the media these days is the arse has dropped out of their revenues and budgets. It takes money and time to properly scrutinize public policy — time and money that few news proprietors have these days. When you add in the relentless focus of the online algorithms on conflict and colour, there is a dwindling news hole for “serious,” public interest journalism. A 3,000-word investigation into irregularities in public procurement can't compete with Justin Trudeau singing Bohemian Rhapsody when the lowest-common denominator of social media kicks in.
As long as newsroom revenues are tied to eyeballs, the instinct will be to chase those eyeballs by serving them up what the numbers say the people want to read. But this is like a parent giving a child sugary cereal all of the time because they prefer it to Shredded Wheat. Keep doing it and Junior will need medication for diabetes. When it comes to news, the audience shouldn't be the ones calling the shots; the editors should be. That's their value-add. That's what makes the news industry different from the information industry.
Again, if you take yourself seriously, then treat your audience seriously. Give them Shredded Wheat. The silver lining of the past few years, if there is one, is that people have shown they will pay for serious journalism.
Journalism has spent the internet years marching to someone else's beat; it's time to be the ones counting everyone in again.
So let the click merchants run with Five Ways Poilievre's Haircuts Recall Hitler. Or Trudeau sings Queen song on Eve of Queen's Swan Song That's not your job. More to the point, that could be anyone's job. It doesn't take any skill or insight. It just takes an arse with an opinion — and opinions, lest we forget, are like arses, in that everyone's got one. But not everyone can read a set of public accounts. Not everyone can remember the past 30 years of failed procurement policy to remind readers/listeners/viewers about why this procurement idea is bound to fail. Not everyone has sources in the bowels of our struggling institutions. Not everyone has the legal wherewithal to protect their work when the mighty don't like what's being found out. Journalists do, and journalism does.
That's serious. That's the stuff of democracy.