[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Grey Fox]

The onus is on The rebel to prove that they are infact journalists.

What would you consider acceptable proof?

An audience - a website qualifies.
example of reporting.

[Barrister]

The onus is on The rebel to prove that they are infact journalists.

What would you consider acceptable proof?

An audience - a website qualifies.
example of reporting.

http://www.therebel.media/

Plenty of examples of reporting from there.

It apparently gets 25k visitors per day, with 57k daily pageviews.

http://www.easycounter.com/report/therebel.media

[Jacob]

Yeah, on second thought I can't think of a criteria that would make news coverage by the Rebel no journalism.

I mean, I suppose there's some criteria to distinguish between any given person with a blog wanting accreditation to attend government press events on one hand, and journalists working for major news organization - but whether they are useful here I'm not sure.

[Josephus]

my experience is they do need to have accreditation. It's not true that any working journalist can walk in. Otherwise anyone can say they are. "i'm a reporter for Lanugish. org". the time to prove you are a journalist working for a bona fide media organization is when you apply for accreditation. Have they applied for such?

[Jacob]

The government's position seems a bit more reasonable given this:

Notley's spokeswoman and communications director Cheryl Oates provided a written statement on Tuesday about the decision.
"The government's position is that if you have testified under oath that you are not a journalist, then we don't consider you a journalist," she said.

Nonetheless, according to the CBC:

Alberta's NDP premier has asked a former journalist to review her government's media policies following public outcry over a ban of correspondents from The Rebel, a website owned and run by former Sun News commentator Ezra Levant.

Premier Rachel Notley confirmed Tuesday that the review would be undertaken by Heather Boyd, the former Western Canada bureau chief for The Canadian Press.

Boyd will take three weeks to examine "how this is dealt with in other jurisdictions, consult with the press gallery, to look at how we deal with new media participants and then we'll move forward with that on the base of those recommendations," Notley said. 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rachel-notley-s-ndp-bans-the-rebel-from-alberta-government-news-conferences-1.3450577

[Admiral Yi]

That's not reasonable at all, given the fact Levant wasn't the one kicked out.

Is it my imagination, or does Canada have disproportionately more fringe right Jews than the US?

[Barrister]

The government's position seems a bit more reasonable given this:

Notley's spokeswoman and communications director Cheryl Oates provided a written statement on Tuesday about the decision.
"The government's position is that if you have testified under oath that you are not a journalist, then we don't consider you a journalist," she said.

Nonetheless, according to the CBC:

Alberta's NDP premier has asked a former journalist to review her government's media policies following public outcry over a ban of correspondents from The Rebel, a website owned and run by former Sun News commentator Ezra Levant.

Premier Rachel Notley confirmed Tuesday that the review would be undertaken by Heather Boyd, the former Western Canada bureau chief for The Canadian Press.

Boyd will take three weeks to examine "how this is dealt with in other jurisdictions, consult with the press gallery, to look at how we deal with new media participants and then we'll move forward with that on the base of those recommendations," Notley said. 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rachel-notley-s-ndp-bans-the-rebel-from-alberta-government-news-conferences-1.3450577

IMO Notley has a strange fascination with process and committees.  This isn't the first time she's tried to to hide behind "we're conducting a review", rather than simply making a decision.

As Yi pointed out, Levant may not consider himself a reporter, but that doesn't necessarily apply to the, well, reporters working for him.  While surely there has to be some level of credential-checking (to prevent Jos's "I'm with languish.org scenario") it's hard to think of criteria which would exclude The Rebel.

There was some good stuff in the CBC story about why this was a bad move on Notley's part:

MacEwan University journalism professor Brian Gorman said he isn't a fan of The Rebel, but agrees that governments shouldn't decide who gets to cover them.

"It's a really dangerous precedent and makes me very, very nervous," he said. "I really hope that they reconsider.

"I'd love to know what the thinking was. I mean, why they thought this was a good idea. That just baffles me."

Darcy Henton, president of the Alberta Legislature press gallery, confirmed that journalists do not need accreditation from the gallery to cover news conferences at the legislature

"It has long been the practice in Alberta that reporters and photographers who present their news credentials to legislature security can acquire visiting media passes to cover news conferences," he said in a written statement.

"The press gallery supports the right of journalists to provide vigorous and diverse coverage of the Alberta Legislature."

Manon Cornellier, president of the National Press Gallery on Parliament Hill, said decisions about who to accredit are made by her organization, not by the government of the day.

Members of the Ottawa press gallery include newer digital outlets such as BuzzFeed, Vice and iPolitics, in addition to sites like Rabble and The Tyee that have ideological viewpoints.

The Globe put out an editorial in support of The Rebel:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/why-the-premier-of-alberta-shouldnt-get-to-decide-who-is-media/article28775443/?click=sf_globe

[Barrister]

That's not reasonable at all, given the fact Levant wasn't the one kicked out.

Is it my imagination, or does Canada have disproportionately more fringe right Jews than the US?

I can't think of a single one besides Levant.

[crazy canuck]

If anything I think we should applaud The Rebel for being an online source that's trying to do actual, first-hand reporting!

That is a stretch

[crazy canuck]

That's not reasonable at all, given the fact Levant wasn't the one kicked out.

Is it my imagination, or does Canada have disproportionately more fringe right Jews than the US?

It is your imagination.  We have one fringe guy that nobody but BB thinks is a journalist.

[Barrister]

And the Notley government is backtracking:

"We've heard a lot of feedback from Albertans and media over the course of the last two days and it's clear we made a mistake,"

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/alberta-ndps-ban-on-rebel-reporters-to-stay-for-at-least-two-weeks-while-it-reviews-policy-government-says

[crazy canuck]

More like they wisely decided it wasn't worth the fight or the exposure they were giving to this fringe element.

[Maximus]

I'm no fan of Levant and I'm not familiar with his site but if in fact the government has certain obligations regarding journalists then it seems like a bad idea to allow that same government to decide who is and who is not a journalist without clearly defined rules on the matter.

[Jacob]

I'm no fan of Levant and I'm not familiar with his site but if in fact the government has certain obligations regarding journalists then it seems like a bad idea to allow that same government to decide who is and who is not a journalist without clearly defined rules on the matter.

Weird how that's coming up just now.

[Barrister]

I'm no fan of Levant and I'm not familiar with his site but if in fact the government has certain obligations regarding journalists then it seems like a bad idea to allow that same government to decide who is and who is not a journalist without clearly defined rules on the matter.

Weird how that's coming up just now.

It's coming up now because they kicked the reporter from The Rebel out from a press conference, and the royalty review luck-up, whereas in the past there hadn't been an issue.  It was made quite clear they were kicked out because they were with The Rebel - not because they were online, but because that outlet was singled out.

And, uncharacteristically, Levant played a longer game.  Rather than immediately go public, they kept it quiet and got a lawyer to write - giving the government a chance to back down somewhat gracefully.  But instead the government doubled down with a glib response.  That then gave Levant ammo to give the story enough legs to catch on nationally.