CBCradio

Recently tagged Craig Westcott

Craig Westcott, Liberal mouthpiece?

nl-westcott-craig-20080908.jpg

The Liberal Opposition is set to announce one of Premier Danny Williams’s sharpest critics as its new communications director, with a surprising twist involving political stripes and media lines.

Craig Westcott has worked for more than two decades in the news media in St. John’s, but is perhaps best known to many as the federal Conservative candidate in St. John’s in the 2008 election.

His announcement as Liberal communications director is expected imminently.

He currently publishes The Business Post, a local newspaper.

Westcott held the federal Tory banner during the height of Williams’s “anything but Conservative” campaign, which the premier waged against Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Westcott has rarely shied in his criticism of Williams, so it’s more than reasonable to wonder what that will mean for the Liberals’ media campaign in the coming session.

In our newsroom, there was a discussion about what Westcott’s relations with the media will be like. After all, Westcott is known among his peers for burning the odd bridge or two (or three) over the years. In one well-known tale from 1990, Westcott quit from the St. John’s Telegram, but not before taping his key above the door of the paper’s diminutive editor.