Jon Liedtke joins 610 CKTB’s Gene Valaitis for his regular weekly segment, Liedtke’s Got a Take!
Jon Liedtke discusses politicians bypassing local Canadian media to control their narratives through hand-picked global outlets. By granting exclusive national security interviews to publications like the New York Times, leaders evade unscripted domestic scrutiny and accountability. This strategy prioritizes polished international exposure over informing Canadian citizens, leaving local journalism frozen out and weakening democracy.
Transcript (Gemini Generated):
Full Transcript (Word for Word)
Gene Valaitis: Liedtke’s got a take. Good morning, John Liedtke.
Jon Liedtke: Good morning, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: Dude, it has been a crazy 24 hours for political media. What’s the single thread connecting Washington, Ottawa, and New York right now?
Jon Liedtke: It really has been a wildly depressing 48 hours of whiplash for Western media, especially for Canadian journalists. The single thread that connects it all is the total dysfunction of the press gallery in the face of hyper-centralized executive power on, unfortunately, both sides of the border, not just with Trump, but also here in Canada. Modern political leaders have figured out the ultimate cheat code: you don’t actually have to face an unscripted, adversarial, local press corp that holds you accountable. You can just ignore them, or you can lock the front doors on local reporters, or you can fly 30,000 feet over their heads to control the narrative on hand-picked platforms. I mean, it’s—it’s not a great story right now, and we’re watching it here, and I’m sure that, you know, the news department on your side of things is not happy about the state of things either.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Well, in Washington, D.C., American reporters were turned away at the gate of the White House yesterday morning despite a federal court order. Meanwhile, Chinese state TV, with the leader visiting Washington, sat on the South Lawn of the White House, and it got even crazier—the Chinese media got into the Oval Office while CNN couldn’t even get into the White House. How does something like that happen in the White House of all places?
Jon Liedtke: Well, this happens, Gene, because everyone is emboldened. Trump looks fantastic to his base when he punches the fake news media in the teeth, and the outlets look great to their subscribers when they play the constitutional martyr. There is zero incentive left for anyone to be nice and play ball, quite frankly. But the problem with that, of course, is that the big players still don’t care much about domestic Canadian politics for us here. So in the U.S., they got the big fish, Carney, on a silver platter without having to worry about any of his local baggage at the New York Times, while we are getting burned domestically and Trump is able to, you know, hold his laser pointer, if you will, and point it where the media will run to.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Well, I mentioned this yesterday. I was not very happy about the fact that Mark Carney spent an hour in Midtown Manhattan giving an exclusive to the New York Times about Canadian national security and U.S. invasion scenarios. We talked about this a lot yesterday. Now, what I’m wondering—this is why I have you on to give me a good take on this—why drop a story like that about Canadians and Canadian security in the New York Times instead of The Globe and Mail, The Star, or one of the many Postmedia newspapers?
Jon Liedtke: Well, listen, I mean, Mark Carney is a double-bank governor from the United Kingdom and from Canada, of course, and he is used to the world stage, and he can command a boardroom. And when he says something in a boardroom like that—even a New York Times boardroom—there’s not going to be any pushback on him whatsoever, whereas, you know, those pesky Canadian reporters are going to have a lot more follow-up. So he sat down in Midtown Manhattan for an hour with 10 American editors and dropped this massive national policy news, revealing that Ottawa actually modeled extreme tail risk (whatever that means) U.S. invasion scenarios and saying that we’re ditching Starlink from Elon Musk and we’re reviewing the F-35 fighter jet purchases. Maybe we just make a decision sooner or later, please? But regardless, international legacy papers will give the leaders the glossy Davos statesman polish that they crave, while Canadian reporters back home are asking those pesky, uncomfortable questions about, you know, execution, inflation, local accountability, “what does this all mean?”, blah, blah, blah. No one wants those questions.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Well, The Globe and Mail obviously had to write their lead story based on what the Prime Minister told an American newspaper. Kind of sounds like the domestic media is getting just a little frozen out here.
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, it is 100%. And how embarrassing, right, Gene? I mean, I mean, we deserve better. The Globe deserves better. All of our media deserves better. If a Canadian Prime Minister is literally preparing for a U.S. invasion, why are we finding out about this months after the fact through a—through an American newspaper? I mean, we should be picking up our own newspapers and finding this out while it is—well, maybe not exactly while it’s happening, but I don’t expect to find out about it months later from an American, a foreign outlet. I mean, it’s just—it’s unconscionable. And I mean, The Globe asked the PMO for comment on the story, and they were handed a quick “no comment.” Because there’s nothing more to add to it, of course, right? So foreign journalists are getting an hour of meticulous detail in Manhattan, and our paper of record gets a “no comment” back home. This is embarrassing.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. You know, it sounds to me like Mark Carney is taking a page right out of Katy Perry’s boyfriend’s playbook here, using elite global media to build a brand over the head of domestic reporters and media.
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, absolutely, Gene. I mean, Trudeau did it well. We saw that like right off the bat with him, and Carney has evolved it to his level: banker style. For a decade, Justin Trudeau treated international media like Rolling Stone, Vogue, The Daily Show as his personal vanity project, and he built a global progressive image over the heads of Ottawa scrums. And Mark Carney took that exact same flyover strategy and gave it a central banker polish. Why do chaotic pressers in the foyer of the House of Commons when you can sit in a carpeted boardroom with 10 American editors, look like the smartest guy in the room, be the smartest guy in the room, and leave Canadian reporters back home to cover the pre-recorded video drops that you have? It’s a really smart PR strategy. It’s just, you know, terrible for democracy.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. Mark Carney doesn’t like scrums, and if a female journalist asks him a question, he treats them terribly. And it’s not just me saying that. I’ve asked several friends of mine who are journalists, including one—I can’t say her name, but let’s just say she hosted the biggest nighttime newscast right across Canada—and they all agree with me. He doesn’t like female journalists, and he doesn’t like unscripted scrums. You know, in fact, he released that produced video a couple of weeks ago, and everybody said, “Oh, what a video!” Well, no. He did that because you don’t have to have reporters when you do a video. So he does talk to the global press, they give him softball questions, and this interview with the New York Times, does that not prove my point?
Jon Liedtke: Oh, I think it absolutely does prove the point, Gene, because, you know, every reporter wants the Mark Carney interview. That’s something for their career, which means necessarily that they’re going to be wearing a special kind of gloves. It hands his critics their exact arguments on a silver platter. In Canada, domestic journalists get pre-recorded video drops, canceled pressers, an empty question period—he’s not really on Canadian soil that often—all while American editors are getting this one-hour unscripted sit-down interview that they get to use for their purposes. And he didn’t drop a softball profile; he dropped core national defense policy to a foreign outlet before Canadians. It’s terrible. Before the domestic audience. It completely proves the critics’ point. It looks like a Prime Minister who prefers global applause over domestic accountability.
Gene Valaitis: Well, where did he start his campaign to become Prime Minister? On The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Hey, listen, I’m out of time. I always say I’m out of town. I’m out of time! At the end of the day, when politicians sort of hand-pick their platforms and bypass local press, who actually loses?
Jon Liedtke: Well, you should go out of town, Gene. Go get a vacation! The public gets deprived, though, of real accountability. Domestic journalism is frozen out, and leaders end up living inside an insulated, self-serving bubble of curated exposure. Canadians shouldn’t have to buy a subscription to an American newspaper to find out how our own government plans to defend its own sovereignty. When politicians replace unscripted local scrutiny with hand-picked global platforms, democracy is the ultimate casualty. We all deserve better.
Gene Valaitis: All right. Great take this morning, Mr. Liedtke. Have a fantastic weekend. We’ll have another take with you on Monday morning.
Jon Liedtke: Looking forward to it, you too. Get out of town!
Gene Valaitis: Get out of town! Jon Liedtke. Liedtke’s got a take.
This aired on 610 CKTB
Leave a Reply