Political Hell #7: Report the Process

David Johnston's report offers a lesson in journalism and media literacy

Hello subscribers, new and old! If you’re wondering when you’ll see another dispatch on technology, the answer is: very soon. In the meantime, however, there’s some more political stuff to discuss.

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There are a few stories – threads to pull, as they say – from David Johnston’s report on allegations that China meddled with the 2019 and 2021 Canadian elections. One is about how intelligence is communicated within government (including decisions about “what should get briefed and recommended to the political levels,” Johnston noted). Another is about what the information that’s gathered suggests, including that which directly applies to this story, which indicates there are active attempts to disrupt our democratic processes (“attempts at foreign influence are ubiquitous, especially from the PRC” Johnston concluded). There’s a story, too, about political cooperation for national security issues, and how it’s lacking (foreign influence “should be a non-partisan issue on which elected officials work together to defend our democracy,” Johnston recommended).

Then there’s a story about the media.

Those who’ve been following the story are already aware that all of it emerged via a series of stories, primarily at Global News and The Globe and Mail. Taken as a whole, they sketched a seemingly significant plot to not only influence riding nominations, but the result of the federal election – and that in some cases the prime minister was aware and did nothing to stop it.

This last allegation, made in a Global News story in early February of this year, was arguably the one that sparked the onslaught of news and opinions that lasted throughout the spring. The story stated that national security officials drafted a memo for Prime Minister Trudeau in June 2017 alleging that “Chinese agents were ‘assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices,’ according to a Privy Council Office document reviewed by Global News.” (Emphasis mine to highlight the direct quote Global used from the briefing document.)

But Johnston’s report concluded that the line quoted in the news story never appeared in the brief Trudeau saw. It was from an earlier draft, which was “significantly revised” by the time it got to PMO. Trudeau was briefed “about the foreign interference threat in a general way,” that summer and the specific memo in question advised the prime minister “that public efforts to raise awareness should remain general and not single out specific countries, because of diplomatic sensitivities,” Johnston concluded after seeing earlier drafts and interviewing, among other people, the man who drafted the memo.

It’s just one of a handful of allegations made through the media that Johnston’s report pours cold water over.¹

I fixate on this specific, uh, irregularity, let’s call it, because it strikes me as a good example of how reporting can be simultaneously effective and disastrous. Is it news that someone in Canada’s national security apparatus drafted a memo intended for the PM with such an explosive claim? The answer is actually no, it’s not. It’s interesting! But it’s not news in and of itself. The key question is: Did the PM see this? If the answer is yes, you’ve got a story. If the answer is no, you probably don’t – yet.

But what happens if the answer is neither yes nor no, as it appears to have been in this case? Here’s how Global reported what PMO had to say about the story: “Citing confidentiality around national security issues, PMO spokesperson Alison Murphy said she could not comment on the memo’s specifics or the existence of a note.” If you’re a journalist, this is an infuriating response – a full-on non-answer.

So what do you do?