General

Unspooling the Tale of the Tape

The journalist behind last week’s Raittvelations tells the story behind the story

Even after a week in which he found himself frozen out by vengeful Tory staffers, pilloried by national columnists and targeted by a vicious whisper campaign, the reporter who broke the story that put rookie Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt in the centre of a political storm has no regrets about going public with the contents of that serendipitously mislaid tape recorder. ‘”I’m not ashamed or embarrassed about my conduct in this,” Halifax Chronicle Herald Ottawa bureau chief Steve Maher told the Hill Times. “And so if there’s anybody who doesn’t want to have social contact with me because of this, that’s on them, I’m not going to worry about it too much.” The interview also casts some doubt on the widespread belief that fired Raitt aide Jasmine MacDonnell was just trying to make things right by her former minister when she launched an emergency injunction request to keep the paper from publishing his story. According to Maher, MacDonnell offered to give him “a better story if he would agree to leave out how he came into possession of the tape recorder.”

The Hill Times

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