Available Oct. 15
In the beginning, reporters were in the back pockets of the politicians who owned the newspapers. Through the decades, the Parliamentary journalists in Ottawa continued basically as extensions of the two main parties. Then in the late 1950s a pipeline funding scandal transformed reporters on Parliament Hill into a kind of unofficial opposition. Ever since, the politicians and the press have been in conflict, never more so than after Watergate. In Part 1 of a discussion with the CBC’s Marc Montgomery, we explore the changing face of journalism. In Part 2, we examine the hollowing out of journalism and the rise of Twitter tweets and Facebook misinformation. Power, PrimeMinisters and the Press has just been released as an audiobook.