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Federal Conservative leader tells followers to ‘go around’ the media

Pierre Poilievre asking for donations after facing heckling journalist
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Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre addresses the Conservative caucus for the first time as leader during a meeting in Ottawa on Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

After being heckled by a Global News journalist, Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre penned an email claiming media “cannot be counted on to communicate” politicians’ messaging.

During a press conference on Sept. 13, to address inflation, Poilievre stepped up to the microphone just as Global reporter David Akin started yelling from the crowd and interrupting the politician’s opening remarks.

Akin has since taken to Twitter to apologize for the behaviour.

Poilievre wrote in an email to followers that Akin “wasn’t interested in hearing what I had to say, and he certainly wasn’t interested in reporting it in an unbiased way.”

Poilievre followed by stating the Conservatives are not fighting against just the Liberals, but against the media as well.

“It’s the media, who are no longer interested in even pretending to be unbiased. They want us to lose.”

The politician closes the email by encouraging supporters to donate to “go around the biased media.”

“We can’t count on the media to communicate our messages to Canadians. We have to go around them and their biased coverage. We need to do it directly with ads, mail, phone calls and knocking on millions of doors. And to do all that we need your help.”

A bright red button sits just above the email signature linking to the Conservative website’s donation page.

As of this posting Global News has not made a public response to Akin’s outburst at the press conference, nor to his apology.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pens an email encouraging supporters to donate to help ‘go around the biased media’ on Sept. 13, 2022 (email screenshot)
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pens an email encouraging supporters to donate to help ‘go around the biased media’ on Sept. 13, 2022 (email screenshot)

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Brittany Webster

About the Author: Brittany Webster

A video journalist with Black Press Media. I recently made the exciting move from my radio anchor position at AM 1150 to this new venture.
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