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 Francie Ducros (who I know) and David Asper (who I dont) are being taken to task for expressing themselves publicly. Now, in recent days, most folks - the ones who live and work in the real world, anyway - have been mainly preoccupied with desperately trying to get to sunnier climes. They havent, Ill wager, been transfixed by the phoney war playing itself out on the editorial pages of the nation. As selfsame real folks lounge at the airport, waiting for their flight to get them to Fort Lauderdale - I was there last week, with a former Canadian Alliance candidate, but thats a column for another day - let me offer a public service. Let me tell you about Ms. Ducros and Mr. Asper. First things first: I am, as the bottom of this space loudly advertises every Monday, a Liberal. Along with being the Prime Ministers Director of Communications, Ms. Ducros is a friend of mine. Because I tend to express myself in rather unconventional ways, I know I occasionally drive her to drink, but we remain pals. I can tell you she is about five feet nothing, a lawyer, and she is utterly fearless. I wouldnt know Mr. Asper, meanwhile, if he bit me on the leg. All I know about him is that his family owns the newspaper you now grasp in your hands - and, tellingly, he seems to be rather fearless, as well. In 1992, for example, Mr. Asper - also a lawyer - helped to secure freedom for David Milgaard, who had served 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In recent days, Ms. Ducros and Mr. Asper have been pilloried, from one coast to the other. The pair have had the temerity to openly suggest that some of the reportage surrounding Prime Minister Jean Chretiens efforts on behalf of his constituents has been unfair, inaccurate, or both. I happen to agree with them. Just a couple weeks ago, I queried whether the story - which the National Post calls Shawinigate in screaming headlines, ad nauseum - was really a story at all. After all, the federal Ethics Counsellor, the RCMP and a few million Canadian voters recently reviewed the myriad allegations, and found them lacking. Notwithstanding that, newspapers across the Great White North continue to devote hectares of column space to the story. I stopped teaching journalism long ago, so perhaps I am wrong in wondering whether the reader is served by any of this coverage, replete as it is with innuendo and insinuation, but not much fact. But thats the way democracy works, I suppose. Being from Calgary, however, I tend be rather slow-witted. Why are Ms. Ducros and Mr. Asper being excoriated for very publicly - not behind closed doors, mind you, where pressure can be applied with a lot less politesse - challenging reporters about their reporting? The Sun chains Greg Weston, whose ultimate employer happens to be the Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney, went after Mr. Asper in a snide piece - chortling about Mr. Aspers opinions and how he is a budding media mogul. The Globes Hugh Winsor, meanwhile - whose former editor did not hesitate to express himself about reporting that was unhelpful to Mr. Mulroney - also flails away at Ms. Ducros (whose career, he concludes, is in a perilous state) and Mr. Asper (whose firm, coincidentally, happens to be the principal competitor of the Globe). Never to be outdone, the Post spilled a great deal of ink about this controversy, none of which is worth quoting here. What is worth quoting are the words of one Conrad Black, the founder of the National Post, who remains vexed that the Prime Minister did not see fit to grant him a peerage. By the time he got through with the insolent pup at 24 Sussex, Mr. Black told the Times of London in November 1999, there wouldnt be enough left of Mr. Chretien to squeeze through an eye dropper. Gee, do you think the Posts coverage of Shawinigate has anything to do with that? Political journalists, as I have learned through experience, are good at dishing it out, but not in taking it. Francie Ducros and David Asper probably know that, too, which is why I admire them for giving Hell to the Press Gallery anyway. Out in the open, the way it should be.
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