Pen-Pushers & Politics

Kirk LaPointe, long associated with the Vancouver Sun, the National Post, the CBC, and the UBC journalism school, has announced his candidacy for the office of mayor of Vancouver. He has not solicited our advice, but we do have some thoughts on journalists going into politics.

Political parties like to have high-profile media people as candidates, but it doesn't always work out (cf. Mike Duffy). Once media types are elected, they are often sent to the back benches and ignored. That was one reason Jack Webster, who was frequently approached by parties, refused to run for election. "I have more power where I am," he said, and he was right.

Of course, there are no back benches in municipal politics, and if you become mayor, you're not going to be ignored. Still, it is sobering to think of journalists in other times and places who have thrown their hats, or their green eye-shades, into the ring. Among them: Warren Harding, former publisher of the Marion Daily Star, who still holds the record for worst President of the United States (against some serious competition) and Mussolini, editor of Lotta di classe, for whom it was finito Benito.

On the plus side, however, there was Churchill, who covered the Cuban War for The Graphic and the Boer War for the Morning Post, and went on to have what one might consider a successful political career.

Still, our feeling is, if you're a journalist, why give that up and have to go to work?