Will they do the right thing and realize that they must push back against the pro-Trudeau, anti-Conservative establishment media, or will they keep playing the same losing game?
Candice Malcolm, the founder of True North News, has launched the Independent Press Gallery, in response to the increasingly biased Parliamentary Press Gallery.
The Parliamentary Press Gallery often blocks independent media, while allowing media groups from Communist China to take part, making it clear the Parliamentary Press Gallery no longer believes in free speech and no longer believes in Canadian interests.
As a result, the Independent Press Gallery is great to see.
Here is how it is described:
“The Independent Press Gallery of Canada (IPG) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to independent, non-governmental journalist organisations. IPG helps protect the rights of journalists and promote a culture of free and independent media in Canada.
Providing member services that range from press credentials to internships, advice and other assistance, IPG strongly stands for the independence and rights of its journalists.
IPG provides a vital counterbalance to the increasing government control and funding over journalism outlets in Canada. Likewise, IPG provides an alternative to the government-influenced Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Throughout its history, the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery has been slow to adapt to change and therefore exclusionary to outsiders. It took seven decades for them to welcome a female reporter, Genevieve Lipsett-Skinner of the Vancouver Sun, who was finally admitted in 1922. In the 1940s, television news shook the world of journalism, and once again, the Parliamentary Press Gallery resisted accepting the changing times. This time it took nearly two decades and “pressure from the Speaker of the House of Commons and other MPs” until the Old Boys’ Club finally allowed broadcasters to seek memberships in 1959.
In this new era of citizen-journalism and digital distribution, the Parliamentary Press Gallery is once again shunning outsiders. They have refused membership to digital news outlets and banned independent Canadian journalists while allowing state-run foreign media organizations membership and priority. Perhaps worst of all, there is evidence that the Parliamentary Press Gallery has been working with federal government officials to ban independent outlets that are critical of the sitting government.
That is why the Independent Press Gallery of Canada was formed. Journalistic independence and freedom of the press are under attack in Canada.
Our Vision is to provide a platform and community for professional, independent journalists who wish to maintain their freedom and independence from government control.
As the federal government in Canada asserts more control over journalism sites and outlets, as they repeatedly block journalists from outlets critical of their political agenda, and as they increase public funding to media outlets that provide favourable coverage, independent-minded journalists are more important than ever.”
This is what Canada needs.
Now, it’s time for all the Conservative Leadership Candidates to express their support.
They need to stop playing the failing game of trying to win over the establishment media, because that will never happen.
Instead, they need to help build up independent media, who will at least give Conservatives a fair shake.
I encourage you to share this article, send it to all the CPC leadership candidates, and call on them on social media/email to express their public support for the new Independent Press Gallery.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – Twitter
