Hill Times reporter Harris MacLeod talks to me, Paul Wells, and Don Martin about the Prime Minister's director of communication Kory Teneycke and changes to the PMO's communications strategy since he succeeded Sandra Buckler last month:

PMO's media charm offensive very much alive, Cabinet ministers more available
'Reporters, myself very much among them, are extremely susceptible to mistreatment and to flattery,' says Paul Wells

The PM's new chief of staff Guy Giorno and new director of communications Kory Teneycke seem to be implementing a more friendly, accessible and available approach to dealing with the Parliamentary Press Gallery, but CanWest reporter David Akin said the government's dumping of three negative reports on the Friday before a long weekend shows that the message is still tightly managed.

"I get the impression that things are shaking loose, that there's different, new protocols for ministers to be made available to media, but again I'm not so sure how that's going to shake out," Mr. Akin told HT last week. "Last week we saw the report on Bernier come out. I happened to be working and that came out Friday before a long weekend at 6 p.m., and do you think we found [Foreign Affairs] Minster [David] Emerson [Vancouver Kingsway, B.C.] anywhere to talk about it? [Read the full story...]