Johann Hari admits copying and pasting interview quotes

[butchersapron]

Has the earthy frank talking welsh prole gone to read the thread or just gone?

 

[TruXta]

You scared him off with your musty balls.

 

[ViolentPanda]

He went to the Congo, you know.

Which probably means he was drinking a carton of Um-Bongo while dreaming up the nuts and bolts of the Congo story.

 

[ViolentPanda]

About 90% from smear campaign and 10% from the boy done wrong. All a bit pathetic really.

Please substantiate your figures.

 

[ViolentPanda]

hello johann.

Don't you mean "Hello David R"?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Aye that's it, anyone who defends someone who's being demonised HAS to be that person. Laughable.

Laughable? No. Amusing speculation? Yes.

This is why the left is so fragmented, we concentrate on shitty little feuds rather than the bigger picture.

What does Hari really have to do with "the left", other than his insistence (and that of his mate David) that he supports "the left"? Look through his actions and words, and what emerges are the actions of a concerned liberal, not of a socialist.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Similarly to Hari, people will always have a pop when you tell them truths they don't want to hear. I like Johann Hari, he writes good articles, always makes salient points, and pisses off cunts like Littlejohn, which is always good. I'm not going to defend everything he's ever done, because I'm not the President of his fan club, he's made fuck ups like everyone has. However, when there's bigger fish to fry people are getting way too obsessive over this. Journalism would be worse off without Hari, simply because not many other mainstream journos are prepared to slag off the coalition like he is.

You're missing the point by a mile, which is that while he may well "slag off the coalition" and call himself left-wing, but by engaging in plagiarism, dishonesty and fantasy he taints the causes he purports to support.

 

[frogwoman]

he has not and has never been a leftist, not that that should matter of course, someones personal opinion is completely irrelevant when it comes to this sort of stuff ...

 

[ViolentPanda]

Don't fucking patronise me you cunt.

Why not? You don't seem to have grasped the import of such a breach of (already thin) journalistic standards as Hari has committed. If you're really that naive you deserve to be patronised.

 

[ViolentPanda]

he has not and has never been a leftist, not that that should matter of course, someones personal opinion is completely irrelevant when it comes to this sort of stuff ...

It does matter, though, when the label "left-wing journalist" get used about him. It taints left politics by association. I don't have a lot of time for "the left" as currently constituted, but I'd rather they weren't tarred with Hari's brush.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So, is it still OK, because he's a great leftie and a fantastic journalist that shines a spot-light on areas that no-one else dare report?

And, of course, people are still going to treat his journalistic output as credible, regardless of his exposure as the Walter Mitty of The Independent.

 

[frogwoman]

It does matter, though, when the label "left-wing journalist" get used about him. It taints left politics by association. I don't have a lot of time for "the left" as currently constituted, but I'd rather they weren't tarred with Hari's brush.

Exactly which is the point I've repeatedly made ... some people think that they are all like him !

 

[krtek a houby]

Exactly which is the point I've repeatedly made ... people think that they are all like him !

Surely a generalisation, in itself?

 

[TruXta]

Exactly which is the point I've repeatedly made ... people think that they are all like him !

They do? They think that all lefties were for the invasion of Iraq? Think about this froggy.

 

[frogwoman]

no ffs , of course i don't mean everyone, but the fact that people like hari claim to be speaking for the left does do some damage imo ... have edited now anyway

 

[krtek a houby]

no ffs , of course i don't mean everyone, but the fact that people like hari claim to be speaking for the left does do some damage imo ...

Of course it would but nobody actually speaks for the left (or the right). He may think he's speaking from a left leaning position...

 

[butchersapron]

Read the thread yet?

 

[krtek a houby]

Read the thread yet?

Had a skinful yet?

 

[butchersapron]

Have you read the thread yet krtek a houby? If not, why are you commenting?

 

[frogwoman]

you don't think that a supposedly left wing journalist plagiarising and lying and taking right-wing positions discredits the left as a whole? For example wouldn't someone with a proven record for lying who includes facts about (eg) cuts in his articles discredit those facts or at least cast doubt on them??

 

[TruXta]

you don't think that a supposedly left wing journalist plagiarising and lying and taking right-wing positions discredits the left as a whole? For example wouldn't someone with a proven record for lying who includes facts about (eg) cuts in his articles discredit those facts or at least cast doubt on them??

I don't, no.

 

[krtek a houby]

you don't think that a supposedly left wing journalist plagiarising and lying and taking right-wing positions discredits the left as a whole? For example wouldn't someone with a proven record for lying who includes facts about (eg) cuts in his articles discredit those facts or at least cast doubt on them??

As I said - plagiarism, is indeed, wrong and indefensible. I cannot take Hari remotely seriously until he fesses up. And even then it would be difficult. I can understand why people would be disappointed in him - and no, I am not a tory.

Does it discredit the left as a whole? Is the left one big homogenous entity?

 

[frogwoman]

I don't, no.

he's let the left down, he's let journalism down, but most of all ...

 

[frogwoman]

As I said - plagiarism, is indeed, wrong and indefensible. I cannot take Hari remotely seriously until he fesses up. And even then it would be difficult. I can understand why people would be disappointed in him - and no, I am not a tory.

Does it discredit the left as a whole? Is the left one big homogenous entity?

no, i'm not saying it discredits the left as a whole, i'm not saying that everyone will take his writings as being representative of the left, but the fact is that he keeps claiming to be part of it while trying to advance his own (frankly tiwsted) agenda. hari has done some good articles in my opinion, but the fact is that his lying and plaigiarism casts doubt on the facts within those articles. he's also respected by a lot of people, gets invites to things (such as the awl thing, not saying the AWL are representative either, but anyway ...)

 

[krtek a houby]

no, i'm not saying it discredits the left as a whole, i'm not saying that everyone will take his writings as being representative of the left, but the fact is that he keeps claiming to be part of it while trying to advance his own (frankly tiwsted) agenda. hari has done some good articles in my opinion, but the fact is that his lying and plaigiarism casts doubt on the facts within those articles. he's also respected by a lot of people, gets invites to things (such as the awl thing, not saying the AWL are representative either, but anyway ...)

I rather imagine the invites will dry up after all this.

He's managed to discredit himself, so I doubt the collective left will be damaged in the grand scheme of things. He may be a poster boy for the liberals or advancing a shady right wing agenda or affiliating himself with the left... but even if he's been displaying his duality; it comes across as duplicity, according to what I've seen here.

 

[butchersapron]

but even if he's been displaying his duality

what, even if he's been displaying his duality?
What does this mean?

 

[ericjarvis]

I really don't know what your issue is with him, it's like an obsession. He got nailed for writing that interviewers said things they didn't, which he had taken from either previous interviews or their published works. Hardly crime of the century. Continually banging on about it and bringing other aspects (especially unfounded ones like the Rose tangent) into the original issue is a smear campaign. It's trying to smear him with the tag of bad journalist, which he isn't. Naive and a bit foolish to do what he did? Certainly. Master plagiarist and Machiavellian internet troll? Nah.

There's an either/or here that is important.

Either there is a skill to being an interviewer by which they get the interviewee to reveal something interesting. In which case stealing quotes from somebody else's interview and claiming them as your own is totally out of order. Or there is no skill involved at all and the whole thing is a waste of time anyway. Either way he's a bad journalist.

It's beyond naive and foolish, it's completely ignoring other people's intellectual property rights.

Something that Johann Hari himself seemed totally aware of last month when I interrupted him clambering out of next door's wheelie bin clad in a rather fetching combination of eau de nil tutu and brown biker boots. "A book has a different relationship to time than a TV show or a Facebook update. It says that something was worth taking from the endless torrent of data and laying down on an object that will still look the same a hundred years from now." He said, as he deftly evaded the doberman guard dog and legged it towards the bus stop.

 

[frogwoman]

Something that Johann Hari himself seemed totally aware of last month when I interrupted him clambering out of next door's wheelie bin clad in a rather fetching combination of eau de nil tutu and brown biker boots. "A book has a different relationship to time than a TV show or a Facebook update. It says that something was worth taking from the endless torrent of data and laying down on an object that will still look the same a hundred years from now." He said, as he deftly evaded the doberman guard dog and legged it towards the bus stop.

 

[ericjarvis]

I hardly think what he does is fiction. People are massively overreacting to what is essentially a bit of a stupid thing to do. Hardly earth shattering deception is it?

It's fiction. He is taking a quote given to somebody else in an interview or written in a book, and claiming it to be something given to him in an interview, and making up a fictional context to try to cover that up. It's not journalism. It's dishonesty and plagiarism. It's fair enough when writing fiction, but not appropriate in journalism.

Though admittedly these days there's not a lot that journalists don't currently seem to consider to be appropriate in journalism.

 

[killer b]

what, even if he's been displaying his duality?
What does this mean?

balls on display?