And in Maclean’s, Mark Steyn responds to a note in the previous edition from the magazine’s editors, who explained that Steyn misattributed a Mississauga News editorial republished on the Canadian Jewish Congress’ website as a proclamation from the CJC itself (and proceeded to riff off of it at some length). Steyn argues, entirely plausibly, that he misinterpreted the words “Mississauga News” as “news from Mississauga that’s relevant to the CJC,” rather than as an attribution. And then he argues that the act of reprinting the article amounts to exactly the same thing as the CJC having written the article itself, and thus that there was nothing whatsoever wrong — inadvertently or otherwise — with his original column. It’s astoundingly disingenuous.I'm not sure--does "astoundingly disingenous" fall under Section 13, and can the Ceej silence Steyn on that basis? No matter. Once again I think Selley has misconstrued things. What Steyn was arguing is that it's "astoundingly disingenuous" of the Ceej to claim that the Mississauga News's words--about "names" being as hurtful as "stick and stones" and Ann Coulter being a nasty piece of work--doesn't represent Ceej thinking on the subject. The fact is the Ceej tried--and failed--to pull a "gotcha" on Steyn. And how galling that must be, particularly as the move has proven so rewarding for the Ceej's award-garlanded proxy Richard Warman, who's pulled "gotchas" galore by writing hurtful things in his guise as a Nazi.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
The Ceej Hauls Out the Little Gun
A really little gun--the National Post's "Full Pundit" Chris Selley. He summarizes the Steyn-Ceej kerfuffle (and gets in his Steyn dig, much to the Ceej's delight, no doubt) here:
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8 comments:
The Ceej is a funny funny place.
Sort of like Oz--only without Dorothy. (See #4 for some grim childhood nostaligia http://www.your3dsource.com/classic-bad-but-good-cartoons-from-your-childhood.html )
"...riff off of it at..."
Someone obviously doesn't read his own work aloud before publishing.
For some reason, Selley seems to have it in for Steyn. Riff-envy, perhaps?
The healthy person's response is to acknowledge Steyn's brilliance and accept our own inadequacy in the face of that brilliance. Then, and only then, will we be at peace with our limited riff-abilities.
It appears that even Steyn's editors acknowledged that he erred. They offered a prettu unique retraction and permitted a lengthy letter from the CJC. Yes, Steyn didnt like it but had not Ken Ahyte thought that Steyn screwed up bigtime he never would have published it. Everything else is whine
Chapel--I think his editors were being astoundingly disingenuous.
Scaramouche its been my experience that newspapers and magazines hate editor notes and clarifications. They bend over backwards not to issue them. Any journalist who works for any publication will tell you so.
No Maclean's editors believed that Steyn messed up. Steyn can never admit that CJC caught him in a serious boo boo so he came up with his fantastical theory of events.
Macleans did the right thing but then got scared that Steyn (like he did with the NP) would just leave...and Macleans need him since its turn to the right. So they gave him space to rant.
That's my story and I am sticking to it :-)
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