Left-wing Journalist Is A Very Silly Boy Shock

[Reg Martin]

Independent columnist Johann Hari has admitted copying the work of others (including it would seem Ann Leslie of the Daily Mail) to improve his articles.
He has also apologised for editing the Wikipedia entries of people he had clashed with, using the pseudonym David Rose, "I took out nasty passages about people I admire – like Polly Toynbee, George Monbiot, Deborah Orr and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown … but in a few instances, I edited the entries of people I had clashed with in ways that were juvenile or malicious: I called one of them antisemitic and homophobic, and the other a drunk."

 

[Rudi Luftwaffe]

There couldn't have been much content left on the Polly Toynbee page.

 

[Napster]

Toynbee, moaning about poverty, whilst living in relative luxury?

ps Hari's a berk. He also "improved" interviews by using quotes from interviewee's works rather than actual quotes said.

 

[Pubey]

Yeah Hari is a complete prat.

What's wrong with fighting against poverty, even if you are wealthy? I guess it comes down to "can the poor be better off without the rich being worse off" argument, I'm not sure about the answer really.

 

[Reg Martin]

Yeah Hari is a complete prat.

What's wrong with fighting against poverty, even if you are wealthy? I guess it comes down to "can the poor be better off without the rich being worse off" argument, I'm not sure about the answer really.

A fair question. Though perhaps more acknowledgement they (we?) are wealthy and giving away more of it may be part of the answer

 

[Pubey]

Littlejohn's apology was better

 

[pickledseal]

A fair question. Though perhaps more acknowledgement they (we?) are wealthy and giving away more of it may be part of the answer

I guess it's part of the old adage that there IS enough food in the world, it's just not equally distributed. Someone like Bill Gates gives away ********s but will still get criticised... People generally don't like people richer than them! Jealousy is a terrible thing.

 

[Reg Martin]

I guess it's part of the old adage that there IS enough food in the world, it's just not equally distributed. Someone like Bill Gates gives away ********s but will still get criticised... People generally don't like people richer than them! Jealousy is a terrible thing.

Don't disagree with what you say here and some people may give privately rather than publically.
I think though that the impression of double-standards or arrogance can do a lot of harm to someone's cause thouhg.
Union leaders on generous salaries and pension schemes complaining about 'fat cats' or wealthy, public-school /oxbridge educated journalists getting indignant about inequality are always going to struggle to get themselves taken seriously.

 

[Thorpe Groyney]

Religious leaders making public utterances about moral issues whilst their colleagues are engaged in immoral and illegal activities, which the church then tries to cover up in collusion with its head, is another that sticks in the craw.

 

[Reg Martin]

Religious leaders making public utterances about moral issues whilst their colleagues are engaged in immoral and illegal activities, which the church then tries to cover up in collusion with its head, is another that sticks in the craw.

I agree, the biggest struggle I have had with belief in God is the conduct of some His self-proclaimed followers.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Billy Bragg made a good point - while Hari may have been stupid, at least he didn't break the law and hack into a dead girl's phone like some right wing journalists.

 

[Reg Martin]

Billy Bragg made a good point - while Hari may have been stupid, at least he didn't break the law and hack into a dead girl's phone like some right wing journalists.

To me that's the tribal mentality about politics that alienates so many people.
What the Bard of Dorset appears to be saying is that "Someone on my side made up quotes, copied other people's articles without acknowledging it, used a pseudonym to falsify entries about people he disagreed with in wikipedia and to be abusive to other people, but, hey, we're alright really because someone on the other side did something far worse".
No-one can defend what the NoW did (and let's not forget that Blair-era Labour party sucked up to the Murdoch empire as much as the Conservatives ever have) but if that's the best defence the left can come up with, I think the response of many people might be 'a plague on both your houses'.

 

[pickledseal]

I agree, the biggest struggle I have had with belief in God is the conduct of some His self-proclaimed followers.

"I like your Christ, but not your Christians." Gandhi

 

[Berrichonne shrimper]

"I like your Christ, but not your Christians." Gandhi

yea but he was just a bloke in a big nappy.
journos seem to live in another world to the rest of the people that they write for,stick em in the 101 bin with politicians.