Johann Hari - Hypocrite or Victim?

[Marmora Man]

Yesterday on Twitter I was accused of plagiarism. This accusation is totally false ? but I have reflected seriously on this and do have something to apologize for.

When you interview a writer ? especially but not only when English isn?t their first language ? they will sometimes make a point that sounds clear when you hear it, but turns out to be incomprehensible or confusing on the page. In those instances, I have sometimes substituted a passage they have written or said more clearly elsewhere on the same subject for what they said to me so the reader understands their point as clearly as possible. The quotes are always accurate representations of their words, inserted into the interview at the point where they made substantively the same argument using similar but less clear language. I did not and never have taken words from another context and twisted them to mean something different ? I only ever substituted clearer expressions of the same sentiment, so the reader knew what the subject thinks in the most comprehensible possible words.

Is he hypocritical and defensive or is it OK for progressive writers (a term he has used to describe his political and personal position) to lie for the "greater good"?

Or is he being bullied for a minor transgression - as Polly Toynbee alleges?

[StraferJack]

A bit of both

[Loz]

Is he hypocritical and defensive or is it OK for progressive writers (a term he has used to describe his political and personal position) to lie for the "greater good"?

Ah, the old 'end justifies the means' dodgy argument of lefties everywhere.

[StraferJack]

Thats a uniquely leftie trait is it? Well I never..

[maxxi]

When I first read it in the indie I thought he was getting in his excuses early because he'd been found out - none of his excuses stand up. If you think the interviewee was clear when you interviewed him/her and it turns out later not to be the case then you weren't listening properly or you're an idiot. To then 'borrow' other people's interview material and/or lift from a biography is lazy AND dishonest.

[????]

I genuinely think he has issues. His stuff like a left wing Littlejohn's but somehow gets in 'quality press' he either deliberately lies, slanders or has no grasp of the facts on any of his directly political stuff which shows no analysis just anti-tory rants really full of hatred. He's better on variiuos civil rights type issues and i wish he'd stick to that. His economic stuff is laughable in its inadequacy and ;lack of understanding.

My suspicion is he's a middleclass guy who struggled with his sexuality - i think he's open about his various past problems (weight/Slot machines) but I don't think the scottish workers son who managed to get into Cambridge is true. He annoys me but i'd like to meet him>

[mockney piers]

He used to wind me up, so I didn't read him particularly often. He does occasionally surprise me with minor bouts of good journalism (on that rare occasion he's practicing journalism rather than opining).

I however know nothing about this incident nor care enough to find out. A little pr?cis anyone?

And Loz, I expect better from you.

[Loz]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> And Loz, I expect better from you.

Most people do. You get used to it.

[taper]

Dirty Hari looks kippered. He's always seemed a little unhinged to me. Much worse things have happened in journalism though.

[paphio]

johann Hari told me and I quote "I never wanted to be a rigorous journalist it is just that can't resist the appeal the truth has to concoct colourful stories"

[David Mc]

I'm going to change my username to "Pedant".

MP - I wouldn't have pointed this out but for the fact that you put an acute accent on the e in "pr?cis", but it's "practising" in this context, not "practicing". Think of it like the difference between "advise" and "advice".

Johann Hari is a decent journalist-in-training. He's just a bit too young and I feel has been unleashed in his perceived position of authority a little too early.

[mockney piers]

Actually thinking about it, almost certainly US spelling autocorrect/swype decision (depending on whether it was phone or ipad).

Plus such pedantry is a little unbecoming.

And he's far too old to be a journalist-in-training, weak excuse, especially considering the scale of his naughtiness; one wonders how many people he bothered interviewing in the first place.

Still as SJ points out, at least he didn't hack their phones.

[maxxi]

Still as SJ points out, at least he didn't hack their phones.

He would never stoop to that... he would just copy from information obtained by other hackers.

[mockney piers]

Private Eye are feeling rather smug about it all, seems they've pointed out on a number of occasions over 9 years that he's fabricated tales.

[nashoi]

I was under the impression it was standard practice for journalists to re-write quotes in the name of coherency, whatever their political persuasion. Cutting and pasting from the interviewee's own work seems more honest to me than re-writing in your own words, at least he's done his research, which is presumably why no-one has complained.

The incident is a great example of the left's enjoyment of stabbing each other in the back though. His real crime is that he's in the Popular Peoples Front of Judea rather than the Peoples Popular Front of Judea (or whatever they were).

[maxxi]

It wasn't the copying and pasting of the interviewee's work that was a problem (everyone does that with relevant quotation marks and information as to where the quote originated) it was doing the same with other interviews given previously to other interviewers.

If I interviewed you, then someone else interviewed you in three months time but used all the answers you'd given me (because they weren't listening properly or misheard or found the answers less illuminating than they wished them to be), you'd be fine with it as you weren't misrepresented (they were your words after all), but the reader is duped into believing that Hari was the one who elicited them. That is dishonest - no?

Far from the left rejoicing it seems to be Damian Thompson in the Telegraph who is doing the most cartwheels of joy. And - for the record - "It's The Judean Peoples' Front NOT The Peoples' Front of Judea!"

[nashoi]

Dishonest but not inaccurate and as Mockney Piers has pointed out, more substantive charges have been laid at his door than that.

It maybe Damian Thompson and the OP that are revelling in it (and why wouldn't they), but the original story came from the DSG blog. In their own words:

DSG aims to offer analysis and propaganda from an ultra-leftist perspective. As well as our own material, we republish documents from the struggle against austerity, a struggle we aim to widen and deepen. We are anti-authoritarian communists. We believe in the popular power of unmediated struggle. We stand against the calcifying effects of parties and bureaucratic trade unions; any structure that seeks with one hand to coherently represent our collective will, while perpetuating capitalist social relations with the other.

Sound like splitters to me and a shade to the left of Marmora Man.

[maxxi]

Hmm... aren't DSG just part of the piss-taking anarchy of the lulz? I certainly don't think they represent 'the left' unless you mean the communist left - rather they resemble a bunch of blogging nerdlings with a penchant for showing off.

I read the Dazed Digital interview too and I quote:

DD: How much does popular will matter when faced with the real political-economic power of the IMF, pace Ireland, Greece, Portugal?

Deterritorial Support Group: Bourgeois democracy is obviously compatible with capitalism, but genuine control of our lives and relations will take something more than the current negotiations of capital with state. It will require a movement and a process of building from our present conditions, a process of communisation, and that is why we are communists. As Karl Marx said, "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things."

[StraferJack]

damning stuff here

albeit from Nick Cohen. Hari's response should be interesting

[david_carnell]

Ouch - it's getting worse for Hari.

I had sympathy initially but it's running low with each new example of his bucket scraping.

[taper]

Damning. Not surprising though. I thought his volte face on Iraq was rather deranged

[StraferJack]

Well, he had re-emerged and you can't say much fairer than what he has said

Starting from scratch

[mockney piers]

I thought the first bit was a bit mealy mouthed to be honest.

It's a bit going through the motions to save his career rather than having genuinely learned some humility.

The journalism course he's put himself on feels like one of those speed awareness courses that people who go 25 mph over tower bridge go on, thinking 'i know how to drive, i missed one sign....' the whole time.

And he's protesting too much about the french thing (Private eye really savaged him on that) meaning that it was probably the only real quote he's used in ten years.

But hats off, at least he's held his hands up and said sorry, it remains to be seen whether the lesson he's learnt is 'don't believe the hype' or 'don't get caught next time'

[david_carnell]

I'm not sure I buy the whole

"The only reason this happened was because I never learnt journalism the proper way and just went straight to the Indy from university...."

As if somehow going on a course will stop him from being an arrogant twat who has given the right wing press and blogosphere ammunition for years to come.

People have fallen on their swords for less.

[taper]

Can't stand Toby Young, but there's a good Fisking of the "apology" here.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100105124/fisking-johann-haris-apology-in-todays-independent/