Are they for real?

Part of the problem, said the seasoned Parliament Hill columnist, is Mr. Harper's press secretary Carolyn Stewart Olsen. "She's not a good influence for him because she affirms his worst prejudices about the media," the columnist said. "It's not particularly healthy for him."

Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin in his column last week reiterated the sentiment. "Sidekick Carolyn Stewart Olsen, in the junior position of press secretary, has become more powerful than any director of communications by telling Harper what he wants to hear and feeding his lifelong paranoia of the press," Mr. Martin wrote, just after Mr. Harper fired William Stairs, his fourth communications director since becoming the leader of the Alliance Party and then the Conservative Party. (link)

Even former Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella admits that the media tend to have a Liberal bias. I honestly find it a little funny that some members of the press still think they are "neutral."

Most reporters tend to come from schools. Schools that tend to be Liberal. Hence, most reporters will tend to be Liberal. There, I said it.

This smearing of Carolyn Stewart Olsen is ridiculous. I sense a little bitterness on behalf of the press about all this. The truth is if you're a Conservative and you've fought in at least one election campaign so far, you know the media is biased. All Olsen is doing is telling the truth.

I've been to too many political events and seen how they were covered by the press afterwards on the 6 o'clock news. Parrallel universes doesn't begin to describe the differences between what I've seen in real life, and what I've seen getting reported by Peter Mansbridge. It's scary to think that we all get our news from media filters that can so distort actual events.... The media unbiased? Please. But that's Canuckland eh?