Thread by @Lidsville

When journalists avoid challenging govt because they fear losing access to key politicians for interviews, that's called "access journalism." Related: when govts block a reporter from interviewing a politician in retaliation for a tough story, that's called "source chill" #bcpoli

..Or at least we called it "source chill" when I studied media.

In any case "access journalism" is considered a degraded form of media. Yet it's rampant in BC. Many of the highest-profile journalists in #bcmedia engage in it & for obvious reasons don't like you to point it out..

Many journalists are rightly very sensitive about being accused of access journalism. Rob Shaw finally blocked @frozen on Twitter, despite Tom Jackman having long been critical of Shaw's govt-friendly reporting, right after Tom replied to him with the hashtag #teamaccess.

@frozen Have you seen the film "Official Secrets" about GCHQ spy Katharine Gun who became a whistleblower to try to stop the Iraq War? The journalists who leaked her intel had to fight their newspaper's concern it would lose access to govt & ministers. Great scene, all star UK cast.

@frozen Guardian journalists Martin Bright (Matt Smith/Doctor Who), Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans) fight their editor Roger Alton (Conleth Hill/GoT) to release a damning security memo showing the US & UK were lying & trying to fix a vote at the UN in order to go to war. theguardian.com/world/2003/mar…

@frozen The old boys (and some young ones, and some women) of the BC Leg press gallery have been doing naked access journalism in BC for a long time, but this has never been more obvious than on the Covid file, where regurgitation of Henry's and Dix's press releases is the norm. #bcpoli

In a way, I'm gratified that more people are now seeing BC media's failure to properly question govt on Covid. Maybe now more people will also question #bcmedia's eerie silence on the troubled, staggeringly overexpensive, destructive & unnecessary #SiteC dam project &c... #bcpoli

There are some great BC reporters who did & do challenge BC govt's nonsensical & risky pandemic mgmt - Penny Daflos, Srushti Gangdev, Nic Pescod, Brishti Basu, Moira Wyton & more - but some have smaller platforms than govt cheerleaders Rob Shaw, Richard Zussman, Liza Yuzda & co.

So if you see media engage in slavish regurgitation of BC govt/ Adrian Dix/ Horgan/ Bonnie Henry talking points, by all means throw the #teamaccess hashtag at them since they seem to be sensitive to it.

We deserve a media that actually functions as a watchdog over govt. /

Exactly. Does Sarah Cox at the Narwhal win journalism awards for getting useless interviews with an obfuscating Energy minister? No, she doesn't bother. She digs hard for the documents & reports on those. She's in the business of truth, not a puppet show.

https://twitter.com/Crof/status/1503472070641868801

Wikipedia's entry on "access journalism":
Access journalism refers to journalism (often in interview form) which prioritizes access—ie. media time with important, rich, famous, powerful, influential people—over journalistic objectivity and/or integrity"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_jo…

The fact that the BC public thinks it's safe to take masks off and the pandemic is over - the blame for that impression falls squarely on #bcmedia. Govt will make bad policy out of fear of a minority of far-right bullies, but it's media's job to challenge that.

Apologies for any pedantic or even just pedagogical tone in this thread, as I'm sure many here know all this stuff already. I used to TA SFU Communication Introduction to Communication SFU CMNS 110 and I think I just fell straight back into it.

How can I have left out Keith Baldrey, the Ur example of BC access journalism. On Covid, on #SiteC and more. Here's Keith defending the BC gov't, while Jess Balzer (who's been great on Covid) points out that Penny Daflos instead held govt to account & got bad policy changed.

PS, the public beery bromance between certain BC media personalities on here, in what feels like a desperate bid for popularity & attention, is more of this same puppet show. In the old days, journalists, despite being imperfect, would have been embarrassed to try this on.

Msg from a friend just now: "Baldrey played a big role in getting BCers to not think objectively about DBH's words/actions/policies.. & it no doubt plays a big role in Baldrey having the early scoop on what policies are coming from the prov'l govt" #bcpoli

https://twitter.com/keithbaldrey/status/1265854341673410562