And the best part is, she does it so politely and reasonably. No sneering, no condescension, no invective, none of the aggrieved privilege that marks so much of Wente's and Corky's oeuvre.
From her rebuttal to Corky, everyone's favourite crazy old uncle, in the Putz:
In the wake of the Margaret Wente affair, the National Post’s Terence Corcoran suggests that media ethics require no oversight at all. But in performing his analysis, could Mr. Corcoran not have provided us with something other than a variant on the “political-correctness-gone-amok” meme? It’s becoming a bit of a worn out catch-all, perhaps best retired or re-assigned.You couldn't ask for a starker delineation between new media and old media. Never mind the arrogance of its initial response or Wente's I'm-the-victim non-apology or the Real Estate Deals From Leah McLaren And Her Mom section. To the extent that the Globe even acknowledges the existence of a "blogosphere," it's only to blow off the idea that bloggers have anything worthwhile to add or ought to be taken seriously. It still hasn't gotten the message, evidently, because it seems to think that if it just circles the wagons and ignores the buzz on social media, this will all go away.
There is such a thing as ethical correctness — more difficult and less cartoonish than political correctness — which we expect in banking, government and business. Does Mr. Corcoran recommend ethics be removed from all areas of public life, or just his own profession? And what good are ethics, without consequences in the breach?
All of which makes the contrast with Carol Wainio and her firm and principled arguments that much more biting.
Better wake up, old-media types. Prof. Wainio is teaching a course in Credibility 101, and you ain't got much left.
Related posts:
- This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Newspapers
- The Sixth Estate » Canada’s Print Media: Democracy Couldn’t Ask for Finer Keystone Kops
- What is most saddening about Ms. Wente’s response …
- The real issue here is that, even after all of the flaccid apologies, the Globe is doubling down on upholding an editorial regime which gives its tacit approval to this sort of behaviour ...
- From John Miller's blog: Wentegate and the Globe
- Did anybody see where Margaret Wente?
Orwell, you bastard! You nailed it. Your best post yet.
ReplyDelete"And the best part is, she does it so politely and reasonably. No sneering, no condescension, no invective, none of the aggrieved privilege that marks so much of Wente's and Corky's oeuvre."
Aside from a couple of awkward grammatical glitches, Wainio has written the most measured and realistic assessment of the Wente situation. It's worse than Wainio first reported but she is so mature about it you don't realize at first that she is nailing the coffin shut.
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