Unbalanced

The Cons' impending cabinet shuffle already ranks as one of the more overreported stories of the past month. But Jane Taber takes the reporting to new depths, combining an utter lack of meaningful information with a remarkable amount of pure Con spin:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is wasting no time getting back to work, scheduling a series of meetings with senior ministers beginning Tuesday amid rumours of a pre-election cabinet shuffle.

Alberta MP and Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice, one of the Prime Minister's must trusted and top performing ministers, was scheduled to fly back to Ottawa Monday.

He is one of the ministers scheduled to meet with Mr. Harper, according to a senior Tory source.

“. . . [The meetings] suggest at a bare minimum a focused government carefully planning its way forward, whether or not a shuffle is in the cards. Though it seems more likely than not,” the source said about the individual meetings...

Like Mr. Prentice, Mr. Flaherty has been a key member of the Harper cabinet and seen as being able to deliver. So have Industry Minister Maxime Bernier and Treasury Board President John Baird.

Industry types such as Mr. Bernier would not want to see him shuffled.

However, there is some speculation that Mr. Baird, who is a bilingual, an aggressive performer in Question Period and a good communicator, could be moved to a portfolio that needs a greater profile.

Now, it's debatable whether it's more problematic for Taber herself to be lavishing unvarnished praise on PMS and his cabinet (even Rona Ambrose is painted as a victim of circumstances rather than someone who's shown no qualms about simply making up false answers), or for her to give such prominent and uncontradicted play to the Cons' own self-promotion. But it does seem clear that the Cons are taking full advantage of those like Taber who are willing to act as stenographers for the government - which should only highlight the need for any self-respecting reporter to present something more than merely what PMS wants the public to hear.