Veteran journalist and Canadian political expert Larry Zolf is a regular contributor to CBC News Online. Larry has been a critic, reporter, producer and consultant for CBC news and current affairs since he joined the CBC in 1962. Born and raised in North End Winnipeg, the hotbed of general strikes and socialism, Larry has covered stories such as integration in Mississippi and the October Crisis in Quebec. He was one of the hosts of the CBCs flagship current affairs television show "This Hour Has 7 Days." He is now retired.

The media often compare Pierre Trudeau with Stephen Harper when looking at their dealings with reporters and with news organizations.

Trudeau was sometimes seen as hostile and at war with the media. Harper is seen that way as well.

Yet one must consider that Trudeau co-operated fully with a biography written by George Radwanski. I wrote Trudeau’s 1972 parliamentary press gallery dinner speech and did two books on Trudeau.

There are no press intimates of Stephen Harper, and no inside look at Harper exists. He has no media insiders.

There is only one book on Harper. It’s called Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada. It is a 407-page biography of Harper by William Johnson, and is a finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen prize for political writing.

Johnson is a well-known, right-wing Globe and Mail columnist.

The Harper biography did not sell well, but it sure does flatter. To put it mildly, Johnson literally hero-worships the PM.

But then on page 407, the last page of the biography, Johnson makes this startling revelation: "Another of Harper’s failings is his reluctance to reveal himself to the public through journalists as intermediaries. For example, he refused to be interviewed for this biography even though he knew it was a serious undertaking by a serious journalist."

Harper, it seems, doesn't even like media flatterers like Johnson. I must admit I loved Harper saying no to his biographer. Still, his war against the media does seem a bit odd to me.

This is a war not based on facts. In the 2006 campaign, Harper was given flattering media coverage at the total expense of an inept Paul Martin.

The media, in fact, gave Harper his 2006 victory. They raved about the war in Afghanistan, and were full of praise about Harper’s first 100 days in office.

But Harper does not see it that way. The PM blamed his party's inability to form a majority government both in 2004 and in 2006 on a hostile, pro-Liberal media.

Harper’s suspicions of the media as being left-leaning and against his agenda is rooted deeply in his soul. When Harper was a Reform member of Parliament, he found the Ottawa press gallery full of radical, chic reporters who had no use for Reform and its rustic, Alberta ways.

For example, when Harper became head of the National Citizens Coalition, an ultra right-wing lobby group, he was attacked by the liberal wing of the media as a neo-conservative, an extremist even.

All this stuff has made Harper determined to control the media by controlling access to him and to the questions the media ask.

We are, of course, really talking about Harper’s war against the liberal wing of the media. (It has to be noted that the Toronto Star newspaper may be hostile to Harper, but its two top columnists, James Travers and Chantal Hebert, are always nice to him.)

Certainly the right-wing media and the business media always look kindly on Harper. The National Post, the Financial Post and the Globe's Report on Business are Harper’s major backers. Don Martin, Diane Francis and Lorne Gunther are but three major conservative columnists who write very favourably about him.

Harper’s use of the local media to bypass the parliamentary press gallery works. The small newspapers and small stations represent the very social conservative base of Harper’s support. Getting lots of local ink and local airtime helps Harper with this base.

And Harper’s social conservative base trusts the local print and local media. It does not trust the Ottawa press gallery, which they view as snobbish and as looking down on rural people.

His alleged petulance is overdone by the opposition and by the liberal media. Harper’s petulance simply feeds into his neo-conservative base. That base hates the liberal media with a vengeance.

In this war with the media, no one is talking about the excellent use Harper is making of television. In his dealings on TV, Harper looks calm, cool and collected. He looks good on the House staircase facing the media, like Brian Mulroney used to do, and excels on TV when he uses the podium to deliver messages to the public.

On TV, Harper is the lone gunslinger, and the opposition critics and the media are mere bit players.

On CBC and on CTV, just about every word Harper says goes on air. He serves the TV networks wisely and well.

Harper is winning his war with the media because the media is hated by the public. Harper is loved by the public, so he is on top of the fold.

The media war has been a total Harper victory. The media will have to learn to play by Harper’s rules or they won’t be in the great game at all.