Alberta, Iran—then Canada

Published December 14, 2011

So you're a Parliamentary Press Gallery reporter and you want to get an answer to a simple, innocuous question from a federal department?

Phone the media line. Ask your question. They don't give you an answer. They're just messengers. They write it down and shoot the email to someone else.

What happens next? Few journalists know for sure. Responses are carefully crafted, often using gover-speak....