Yeah, well.
First, some serious acknowledgement to the heroic
Media Culpa, who is, evidently single-handedly, doing more
quality control for Canadian journalism than the entire corporate media sector combined. No point in going through it all again. Read Media Culpa (and keep your Gravol within reach).
What to do about Wente? In a way, she does the same thing as Blatchford: create controversy, be contrarian, pose as the great crusading sacred-cow-attacker with the courage to say what everyone else is thinking, masquerade as the purveyor of "common sense," take a perverse pride in being "politically incorrect," and so on. There are a lot of people on that gig, of course, but Wente's been riding it so successfully for so long that she must be up to her ass in frequent-flyer miles.
But where Blatchford was all about visceral gut reaction and stoking the lynch mob, Wente's shtick is more insidious — and, just maybe, more fundamental to the Globe and its mission. She is the stinking, unrepentant, unreflective id of the smug entitled boomer demographic — people whose biggest complaint, apparently, is that they can't fit enough cases of wine into the SUV for the cottage. And uppity waiters, baristas and service staff, and why the hell are my taxes so high when these overprivileged brats don't want to learn marketable skills because they're being indoctrinated by entitled leftist tenured academics?
You know them.
The generation who had it all their own way, and are insisting on keeping it that way. The ones who ran up such a giant fucking tab economically, environmentally and socially that the planet just won't be able to carry the interest, and can't be bothered to give a shit because they'll be gone when the bill arrives, and shut up and quit your whining, you pampered kids don't know how good you have it compared to what we went through …
Self-awareness and critical thought aren't part of the equation for the Wentes of the world and their milieu. They've never had to practice it themselves. They don't want their privilege or worldview challenged, and they especially don't want the kids for whom they're leaving such a giant mess questioning any of the assumptions underlying the generational and social structures sustaining that privilege. (Which is part of why you see such condescending contempt for the Occupy movement, but that's another essay.)
As for the alleged instances of plagiarism / manufactured quotes / fabricated sources / sloppy or non-existent attribution, well, no point in going through that when MC's done such a comprehensive job listing and documenting it. Why does the Globe allow it? God knows. Maybe they've made a strategic decision that that suppurating pile of aging biomass is their core demographic, and Wente, predictable and lazy as she may be, is their entree to that market. It's not about informing them, it's about reinforcing their prejudices and ensuring that their eyeballs can be reliably delivered, en masse, to advertisers.
I could be wrong, of course. But it's worth asking ourselves whether this is what we have in mind when we talk about "journalism."
See also:
Saskboy and Jymn rub The Globe's nose in #RoboCon | #cdnpoli
Media culpa catches Wente being sloppy again | #journalism
How The Globe channels the 1 per cent | #Occupy #classwarfare
The Sun's effect on our national conversation is obvious, but what about the Globe?
Media culpa: George Monbiot’s unedited letter to the Globe and Mail
