Econolive (Empire News), World Business Press (wbponline.com) and Need to Know News (NTKN) all access Ottawa lock-ups

Here’s what Statistics Canada told me in an e-mail:

Dear Ann Brocklehurst:

Thank you for email requesting information on access to Statistics Canada’s lock-ups.

News outlets granted access to our lock-ups must be accredited members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. This is the prime criteria.

Currently, eight agencies have access: Bloomberg, Canadian Press, Dow Jones, Empire News, Market News, Need to Know News, Reuters and World Business Press Online. The former Canadian Economic Press News had also access. These cover requests for the last four years.

I trust this answers your question.

It answers my original question but raises a few others. I’m not that surprised that the Parliamentary Press Gallery would accredit what appear to be front operations. As a rule, political journalists know nothing about business, which makes their eyes glaze over. To them, there’s not really any difference between Bloomberg and NTKN. They all put up boring numbers on a screen.

The bigger questions is why StatsCan relies so heavily on the Parliamentary Press Gallery and lets operations like NTKN, CEP News, Econolive and WBPonline into lock-ups.

I almost wonder if there’s not some sort of a sting operation going on here.