Opinion Brief: Monday, May 8, 2017

2017
Tonight’s Opinion Brief is brought to you by the IOG’s flagship Executive Leadership Program for public service leaders. Cohort 17 starts in June and is accepting nominations. Learn more about how this program builds government leadership capacity at http://iog.ca/learning/executive-leadership-program/
__________________

Good evening, subscribers. Safe to say that the whole idea of journalists with political agendas is getting to be a fraught topic in the trade these days (thanks a bunch, fake news). The idea of journalists as apolitical priests was always a myth — but where exactly should newsrooms draw the line between reporting on the news and making it? And do editors themselves even know?

Tonight, Martin Patriquin takes up the cause of erstwhile Toronto Star columnist Desmond Cole, upbraided by his editorial masters for getting personally involved in the events he was covering — even though the practice is widespread throughout Canadian punditry and hardly a new thing in the Star newsroom either. “Sometimes the status quo is unacceptable. Sometimes it takes loud, brash and professionally obnoxious voices to help change it.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s standing by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in his time of trouble. If that’s true, says Tasha Kheiriddin — if Trudeau isn’t sizing Sajjan up for the high jump over a controversy about his claims regarding his work on a major military campaign — then why was Marc Garneau handling Sajjan’s media on the weekend? “Sajjan is a juicy target, and the opposition will now scrutinize every word he says in an effort to take him down.”

Finally, Jonathan Manthorpe says its time to dial down the euphoria over Emmanuel Macron’s win over Marine Le Pen in France’s national election. The hard-right forces of intolerance Le Pen represents aren’t going anywhere, and Macron’s mandate is anything but clear. “This is reality now: A party with a neo-Nazi heritage which is adamantly anti-immigration and is all for leaving the European Union is now an established force in the heart of Europe, with support from over a third of voters.”

Good night.