PM vs media, round XVIII

Wells dug up these quotes -- from Allan Levine's 1993 book Scrum Wars: The Prime Ministers and the Media -- but they're so hilarious I'm going to reprint them here...

The [news] conferences had first been convened, starting in December 1976, at the theatre in the National Press Building and had been chaired by the gallery executive itself. But in November 1978, in an attempt to exercise greater control over the prime minister's meetings with journalists, [Communications Director Dick] O'Hagan moved the weekly gatherings down Wellington Street to the Canada Conference Centre. Now the conferences were chaired by Trudeau's press secretary Jean Charpentier, who decided which reporters could ask questions. O'Hagan was also unhappy with the "wooden, remote and professorial" image of Trudeau "sitting behind the desk in the (Press Building's) Theatre, with a flag behind him and glass of Perrier Water (with a slice of lemon) at his right hand." At the Conference Centre he could stand.... For O'Hagan, the image was perfect. ———— [Louis] St. Laurent respected the press and media as having as important a job to do as Parliamentarians. But this did not mean that St. Laurent was willing to be "scrummed." Reporters would stand patiently in an East Block corridor waiting for cabinet meetings to end. When they approached the prime minister with a question about what had been discussed, he would usually cut them off curtly. "You have no right whatsoever to examine my mind," he'd tell them. "If there will be some action, I will let you know." ———— Whereas Diefenbaker relished the challenge of the corridor debates, Pearson found them impossible.... At the suggestion of press secretary Dick O'Hagan, the journalists were moved into a special conference room. ... Two long and trying years went by before Pearson finally banned this media circus from Parliament's hallways for the duration of his term in office.