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The other, Pierre Poilievre, is keeping reporters off his campaign plane — a major break from the common practice of the major parties, but no surprise for those following the Conservative leader’s repetitive rants against the CBC and the “liberal� media.

In a world where Donald Trump had made media-bashing into a winning brand, does it even matter that neither of this country’s would-be leaders has a good relationship with the media?

Let’s get this out of the way first: no one in the general public is going to care whether politicians of any stripe are mean to journalists.

Those who see the media as too powerful — and there are a lot of them — would be more likely to cheer anyone who takes journalists down a notch. Even those who have a more neutral view of the media have limited patience for journalists using their platforms to complain they have had a bad day at the office. For what it’s worth, I share the latter view.

For both these reasons, journalists do themselves no favours when they level the usual protests about their important role as an accountability check in a democracy. That happens to be true — and more so every day in the shrinking media world — but it often comes across as self-importance.

There are far more practical reasons for politicians to consider whether testiness or outright hostility to the media is a good idea in the current political climate.

Many people watch political leaders to assess what kind of boss they would be. A leader who doesn’t like hard questions in public probably doesn’t like them in private either. But anyone in a position of authority needs to have advisers who are willing to say “no,” or “that’s not a good idea.”

Canada has had a string of recent prime ministers who were known as tough bosses. Jean Chrétien ran a tight ship on that score, with high expectations for ministers and staff, including loyalty. Paul Martin gained a reputation, even before becoming prime minister in 2003, for tantrums with staff. Stephen Harper made clear from day one that he wasn’t in power to make friends, especially with journalists, with whom he waged war almost from the moment he gained power.

Most recently, Justin Trudeau could cut people off swiftly and unsentimentally when they got on the wrong side of him.

But there’s a fine line between being a tough boss and a bad boss. No politician wants to cultivate a reputation as being a bully with those who question them — except Donald Trump, of course, but he’s breaking all the rules every day.

In the normal world, tone still matters — or so we hope. Given that standing up to the media isn’t in itself a bad thing in the eyes of the voting public, the way in which it’s carried out can count for something.

We can probably blame social media (and Trump) for some of this, but a lot of the criticism levelled against the media is increasingly personal. I started to notice this a few years ago with the Conservatives in particular, who go straight from objecting to reporting or commentary to objecting to the person making it.

Almost every journalist on Parliament Hill has those stories of instant demonization — a regrettable development for those familiar with schoolyard bad behaviour.

Questioned this week by CBC’s Rosemary Barton about his personal financial holdings, Carney didn’t demonize Barton, but told her to “look inside yourself …. You start from a prior (assumption) of conflict and ill will.�

Poilievre, for his part, has made it a bit of a routine to mock reporters and their news outlets at public scrums, especially the CBC and The Canadian Press. One of his viral videos showed the Conservative leader munching an apple and sneering at a local reporter’s questions. Title of the video: “How do you like them apples?�

Of course this all goes back to Trump. He’s not paying a price domestically for his general lack of respect for anyone who challenges him, but the U.S. president is paying it in Canada. It’s why Carney and Poilievre, in their own ways, are making clear they would be a prime minister who demands respect from Trump’s White House.

It’s another practical reason why this may not be exactly the time to be publicly hostile to any check on accountability. Whether that’s with the media or any democratic institution or voters, it’s not a good look.