HARPER HIS OWN WORST ENEMY BECAUSE OF MEDIA STRATEGY

Controlling access leads to impression of a campaign that is going off the rails

Conservative party supporters watching the slow-motion unravelling of their party’s campaign over the past two weeks, as questions stemming from the Duffy trial have side-swiped Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s daily events, are bound to feel irked as they hear reporters repeat variations of the same questions day after day, so the PM can repeat his pro forma evasions.

But where would that annoyance be directed, one wonders, if these same partisans were aware of the extent to which this daily media drubbing — call it Chinese water torture — is self-inflicted?

On Thursday, as has long been his habit when on campaign or campaign-style swings, Harper made his prepared policy announcement, an expanded tax benefit for adoptive parents, then took five questions — four reserved for parliamentary press gallery reporters accompanying the campaign, one for local media. Of the gallery’s questions, by tradition, at least one goes to a francophone news outlet, typically Radio Canada. The PM has long resisted requests by reporters that he answer every question in both official languages, preferring instead to answer only in the language in which the question is posed.

Typically, in a modern campaign, the canned daily event is unsurprising, and the leader’s prepared talk a tweaked version of a stump speech he or she has delivered hundreds of times. So the day’s “event” is not where the networks and newspapers go for their lead item.

For that they look to the scrum, or “media avail,” that follows the announcement. These interactions are vital to reporters covering a campaign on the road, because they typically offer the only interesting or “new” news.

The practical effect of de facto restricting the number of questions and responses that will reach a nationwide audience to three, is to force reporters on the campaign bus or plane to focus their tiny treasure trove of questions on the areas of essential interest to all their news desks. In this campaign, over the past two weeks, that has meant all Nigel, all the time. A national reporter who wastes a question on something already known — for example, the prime minister’s view of the necessity of combating terrorism — is not doing his or her job.

This can lead to an uncomfortable dynamic in which the hand-picked audience attending an announcement by the PM, expecting to hear reporters quiz him about the new funding or tax break for their training program or what have you, instead hear them rattle on about the latest scandal. That often makes partisan attendees unhappy. Though I’ve never seen a screaming tirade of the kind that marred Harper’s event Tuesday, I’ve heard much impatient grumbling at such events, as reporters posed their questions.

But here’s a different question: What would be the result if the PM, rather than parcel out media access as though it’s the rarest of gifts, suddenly opened the spigots? What if he, as Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has been doing at recent campaign stops, “ran the table” and fielded every question from every reporter in the room, not once, but for days on end?

For starters, there are only so many ways a reporter can frame the same basic question.

“If your chief of staff, Ray Novak, knew in advance of the $90,000 payment by his former boss, Nigel Wright, to Senator Mike Duffy, then why is he still your chief of staff ?”

On Thursday the alpha question morphed to exquisite new heights of complexity, as reporters tried to head off Harper’s dodges of recent days: “Please don’t say you don’t accept the premise of my question …”

It’s inevitable, though, that after the fifth, seventh, 10th or 15th restatement of the PM’s basic claim that he himself did not know of the $90,000 payment, that only Wright and Duffy are responsible, that Wright’s underlings are not to blame, and so on, that all avenues would be exhausted, and someone, perhaps even Harper himself, would pivot to another issue, thereby making news on another file. After all, that’s precisely what leaders do in debate; Harper can do it rather well.

In the absence of such pivots, the flow of news stories out of the Conservative campaign, day after day until the Duffy trial adjourns next week and perhaps even for a few days after that, will be variations on this theme: “Nigel Wright affair continues to dog Harper on campaign trail.” Or, “Harper defends …” And that’s a best-case scenario. Conservative strategists can tell themselves the damage in the intervening days won’t be permanent.

That would be a gamble, with a great deal riding on the outcome.

Bottom line? The prime minister’s penchant for strictly limiting and controlling his interactions with the media is itself contributing to and magnifying the emerging portrait of a campaign going off the rails. Rather than hang the messenger, unhappy Tories might consider asking why this is so.

On Thursday the alpha morphed question to exquisite new heights of complexity, as reporters tried to head off Harper’s dodges of recent days.