I agree, broadly, with the
thrust of Travers’ story – not the
spin.
First, he’s right that Harper is trying to create a new
narrative. He needs one because the media has its own – see Ruxted’s
”A new political narrative” published about two months ago.
I think it’s important to understand why the media created their
new narrative: the old one was boring.
The media needs controversy to sell advertising – which is
why the media and journalists exist … period, full stop. When the news is dull the viewers switch over to
American Idol or some other such mindless pabulum – the advertisers measure, carefully measure, viewers and readers, when the viewers switch the advertising revenue for e.g.
The National goes down, along with Peter Mansbridge’s pay packet,
one suspects. That’s what matters – advertising revenue. Journalists are slaves to it – earning it is how they feed their families; it is their only productive function. The old narrative – ‘agreed,’ more or less, by interim Liberal Leader Bill Graham and Prime Minister Harper was free from interesting controversy; it was boring; it wasn’t selling soap. The media made up a new story. That it was founded on a tissue of lies and rubbish made no never mind – it created
some controversy. When that didn’t create enough controversy the media concocted the
detainee story –which worked for a while.
Now the PMO is striking back – it is creating it’s own
new narrative: combat operations worked; we are doing real, visible, measurable development work (which Canadians want)
because we fought, killed and died, and drove the Taliban out of our area.
The journalists, who, by and large, heartily detest Harper and
hate his press agent Sandra Buckler, need to strike back – quickly and hard - because Harper’s new narrative has one huge advantage: it’s believable.
Consider the current message, it is clear but has subtle bits, too:
See, it says,
that’s the PM, ‘outside the wire,’ where Canadians died just months ago – now it’s safe enough that we can bring the PM there. It’s still a combat zone (he’s brave
, too, isn’t he? you’ll remember that, too, voters, won’t you? ) but we ‘won’ – now we're are securing the area and doing development. The media cannot deny what Canadians can see with their own eyes; but they can try, they will try and, as Travers demonstrates, they are trying.
So, Travers and the rest of the anti-war media faction will now try to shift the focus away from Canadian success and towards
new, more difficult problems. He’s right: Pakistan and poppies are problems. One, poppies, is relatively easy to solve - replace the stupid people doing poppy eradication with smart people doing what Ruxted suggests in the last paragraph of
”Ruxted’s Response to the Senate Committee’s Report”. The other, Pakistan, is hideously difficult and no one in their right mind suggests that Canada can solve it – but that will not stop the media from blaming it on Prime Minister Harper and advancing
Taliban Jack Layton’s agenda.
