Former Harper aide joines CBC political commentators

The CBC has added Harper’s former director of communications Kory Teneycke to their
roster of political analysts, Broadcaster Magazine reports:

“Teneycke will contribute to CBC News across all platforms. He will
appear on programs such as The National, Power & Politics and The
House, in addition to CBCNews.ca’s political portal. Teneycke will
comment on government, politics and media, and will participate in CBC
News’ election coverage, including election night.”

While Teneycke, 36, was at the PMO, a blogger from Partisan Hobo asked “Why do I see his name in print more often than the PM’s? And why does he
have a higher profile than any director of communications I can recall?”

At the time, Maclean’s  reported that:

“Conservative political staffers are being told to expect a leaner, less bureaucratic government that focusses less on day-to-day management of policy files — “we’ve got a professional public service to take care of that,” one source told me — and more on sharpening distinctions between the Conservatives and their opponents.”

Partison Hobo noticed the change:

“I’m sure it’s not accurate to say that Teneycke is the cause of the change in tone around the PMO in the last year; it seems pretty clear that the decision to go partisan came first. That said, when Teneycke arrived on the scene, he was considered a wonder-boy who helped win elections, merge parties, and lobby successfully for sweeping changes in policy.

“It’ll be interesting to see what history thinks of him (if history thinks of him) if the Harper government fails to win a majority in the next election. The current minority, the proroguing business, the recurring complaints from the Speaker and so on don’t necessarily reflect well on the PM. The director of communications is a big part of that.

“Meanwhile, I’m left wondering … Why DOES he have such a high profile?”

The National Post reports:

“Teneycke was previously the Conservatives’ research director, an
organizer with former Reform leader Preston Manning, an adviser in the
1990s to former Ontario premier Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservative
government, and a biofuels lobbyist who made a mark with the mascot Corn
Cob Bob.”

The CBC announcement comes almost a year after Teneycke stepped down from
the PM’s office last July. Back then, he
told The National Post
that he was looking for a more predictable, non-government job so he
could “have a normal life with his young family.”

“News happens often at inconvenient times,” he said. “I don’t think it’s
the amount of work in these things; it’s the very unpredictable nature
of it that is always a challenge to having any sort of routine or
normalcy in your personal life. But that’s true for millions of
Canadians in various things they do.”

When Teneycke was
first appointed to the PM’s office, some pundits wondered if he
would herald in a new area of openness with the media.

At the time, political
blogger Stephen Taylor (and Teneycke friend) wrote:

“Under Sandra Buckler, the communications strategy seemed to be more of a
shield; the former D.Comm. was effective in circling the wagons closely
and the government only messaged to mitigate damage or give a basic
understanding of its agenda.”

“Under Teneycke, I’ve come to understand that the strategy will be more
of a sword. The communications strategy of the Teneycke comms shoppe
will be proactive in its approach, it will get ahead of message and set
the political tone from the Conservative government’s perspective.”
 
Whatever your opinion of his PMO reign, Teneycke quickly made a name for
himself by offering
up plenty
of sound
bites to journalists.

Broadcaster Magazine spoke with
Teneycke and the CBC:

“Kory’s intimate, first-hand knowledge of government and public policy
will bring a fresh perspective to the roster of opinion at CBC News,”
said Jennifer McGuire, general manager and editor in chief, CBC News.
“We look forward to Kory’s views enriching our coverage of the many
issues that matter to all Canadians.”

“I look forward to joining the CBC lineup, and I am humbled to work with
such a top-notch group of broadcasters and commentators,” said
Teneycke. “My intention is to provide intelligent analysis from a
conservative perspective, and not bore the audience too much in the
process.”

In other Tory/CBC news, CBC national political reporter Krista Erickson is the subject of debate since it was announced that she is
registered as the designated traveller for Calgary Centre Conservative MP Lee Richardson, which means she is entitled to receive flights paid
for by taxpayers.
Former board member Deborah Campbell, one of many supporters of the
Canadian Association of Journalists who abandoned it in 2004-2005,
explains why she left —  and why she thinks the CAJ cannot move
forward without addressing its past.
“L’Affaire Cameron, or What’s
Wrong With the CAJ,” is Campbell’s response to the “Open letter from
the CAJ” posted recently on J-Source.

The Canadian Association of Journalism, plagued by falling membership and financial turmoil, has issued a cri de couer in the form of an open letter. Having been a member of the CAJ board and chapter president for Vancouver/BC, since resigned, perhaps I can offer the organization some insight as they seek to understand why they have lost the support of the journalists for whom they purport to speak.

The most important reason why the tireless volunteers who were long the unheralded backbone of the organization have left has less to do with the current crisis in journalism than with a very specific fiasco that brought shame to the organization and to journalism generally. This event, which cost the CAJ enormous credibility and goodwill, centered on its fateful decision to publicly “denounce” (their word) one of the country’s foremost investigative journalists, Stevie Cameron, rather than defending her from politically-motivated attacks as they should have. While the event occurred six years ago—a time when neither myself nor the current president were on the board—it led to the exodus of key CAJ supporters and the permanent alienation of countless others. Cameron, whose courageous reporting had exposed how an ex-prime minister had taken bribes from a German arms dealer, made powerful enemies—but who would have thought they would include the very organization that was supposed to represent her?

Bill Doskoch, another CAJ member who left over the Cameron debacle, has concisely documented the issue here. As he writes:

“The CAJ board said in its March 10, 2004 news release it was denouncing Cameron — language never before used in the CAJ’s history in attacking an individual journalist.

And for what? Fabricating a story and putting out information that could potentially ruin people’s health or livelihoods? Plagiarism? Recklessly abusing her position as a journalist for personal gain? Violating the public trust?

None of those things. She was doing serious investigative reporting into high-level political corruption — something the CAJ is purportedly in favour of — and got overly entangled with the police.

The private response of many seasoned investigative reporters was “there but for the Grace of God go I.”

As another commenter he quotes argues, Cameron did what any responsible citizen ought to do when serious crimes have been committed: when the police asked her questions, she answered. She betrayed neither her sources nor her profession.

Having sat through (indeed, having instigated) stormy board meetings questioning the rationale for the spiteful and misguided attack on Cameron’s reputation and urging a repudiation, I came to the conclusion that the CAJ was neither ready to confront its mistakes nor capable of doing so. Thus my work there was to no avail. That position was validated when, soon after my resignation, they invited such an illustrious example of journalistic integrity as Judith Miller, best known for making the WMD-in-Iraq case for war in the New York Times based on anonymous one-source stories (a source later revealed as noted con artist Ahmed Chalabi) to give a keynote address at a national CAJ conference.

Not only is the CAJ largely irrelevant to me as a journalist (freelancers are still, oddly, considered inferior by the organization, despite the fact that many of us work internationally and that freelance is very nearly the only way we can do time-intensive long-form investigative journalism in the current climate) but based on the organization’s past positions frankly detrimental. I am much more comfortable bringing together groups of journalists on my own rather than being asked to defend such actions by those who came to the events I organized—or didn’t come, and let me know exactly why. (Attacking Stevie Cameron and honouring Judith Miller? Really?)

That’s not to say that the CAJ has not done good things. Its professional-development conferences, organized by unsung volunteers, are frequently excellent, and in my tenure on the board we joined a successful fight against an attempt by Canwest Global to seize all rights (including moral rights) from freelance contributors.

However a defining role of journalism, perhaps the defining role, is to hold the powerful to account. At the CAJ that value has been up-ended. Not only does the CAJ need to redefine what it means to serve journalists in a time of massive change, but to repudiate past decision-making that is offensive to core journalistic values. Until that happens, like L’Affaire Cameron, the troubles at the CAJ will not be resolved.

Deborah Campbell is the author of This Heated Place, a nonfiction journey inside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and an award-winning journalist who has written on international affairs for Harper’s, Foreign Policy, The Walrus, The Economist, New Scientist, and many other publications. She teaches literary nonfiction at the University of British Columbia.