Johann Hari's Non-Apology for Plagiarism

British journalist Johann Hari has apologized for making stuff up.

The gay, left-wing journo has enjoyed a reputation for incisive, hard-hitting interviews, chiefly at The Independent. Yesterday, Hari's reputation fell gracelessly apart under accusations of plagiarism and dishonesty.

Basically, he was cutting and pasting bits from other sources and passing them off as part of his own original interviews. He'd add extemporaneous details, such as "He lit a cigarette" and "She spoke faster," to make it sound authentic. I cited a few examples in my article about Hari yesterday. Writing in the New Statesman, Guy Walters provides some more examples from Johann Hari's 2006 interview with Hugo Chavez:

"I realized at that moment that I was saying goodbye to life," he says, looking away. "So it is possible that, after surviving, one has been a bit... imbued with that sense ever since, no?"

The problem is that these exact words come from a 2001 interview by Jon Lee Anderson at the New Yorker. So not only did Hari neglect to credit the source, but he also added "he says, looking away" to create the impression Chavez said this to him directly. And he does it again in the same "exclusive" interview:

Just as this is beginning to sound like sepia-tinted nostalgia, he adds, "I was in close contact with poverty, it's true. I cried a lot."

This time, the quote is lifted verbatim from Lally Weymouth's Chavez interview in Newsweek, published in 2000.

Before the revelations of Hari's practices broke, he first addressed the charge in a "clarification" on his personal blog. His justification was that he only occasionally uses already-published quotes from the same person when they don't express themselves as well in the interview. As long as they're making the same essential point, it's legitimate he says. Besides, everyone does it:

I called round a few other interviewers for British newspapers and they said what I did was normal practice and they had done it themselves from time to time.

Now Hari has made something of an apology in The Independent, under the headline "My journalism is at the centre of a storm. This is what I have learned."

His excuse now gets even odder:

[An] interview is not just an essayistic representation of what a person thinks; it is a report on an encounter between the interviewer and the interviewee. If (for example) a person doesn't speak very good English, or is simply unclear, it may be better to quote their slightly broken or garbled English than to quote their more precise written work, and let that speak for itself. It depends on whether you prefer the intellectual accuracy of describing their ideas in their most considered words, or the reportorial accuracy of describing their ideas in the words they used on that particular afternoon. Since my interviews are long intellectual profiles, not ones where I'm trying to ferret out a scoop or exclusive, I have, in the past, prioritised the former. That was, on reflection, a mistake, because it wasn't clear to the reader.

A non-apology. He doesn't think it's wrong, just (regrettably) unclear. Except Johann Hari doesn't write a simple, straightforward intellectual profile. He adds ephemeral details to give it a Gonzo-style edge. He doesn't want to just convey the intellectual ideas; he wants to draw us into the emotions of the interview and the personality by making us believe he was actually there, experiencing the story as it was told to him.

My remaining question, now Hari has kind of confessed in a roundabout sort of way -- ish -- is what of all the other journalists he claims to have spoken to? The British newspaper interviewers who, according to his initial explanation, do exactly the same thing as a matter of routine? Are they willing to come forward? Or was their presence, too, an embellishment to drive the point home?

James Delingpole's apology

Following the atrocious debacle of the weekend, in which a member of the public was harassed after having his name and address published at the Telegraph Blogs website, climate change denialist* James Delingpole has offered something of an apology.

Predictably, he can't help but use the opportunity chiefly to sneer at The Guardian's eco-friendly commentator George Monbiot, who called attention to this bizarre behaviour.

Here's the actual apology:

And why did I pull [the article]? Because I made a stupid mistake, that’s why. When I posted up the letter quoted above, I neglected to remove the sender’s name and address. This was careless but not, I promise, vindictive. And I deeply regret any distress or hassle which may have been caused to the person I named. When I read some of the comments below my blog and realised what I’d unwittingly unleashed, I removed the person’s name from the blog; then later, all the comments pertaining to the person; then later, I pulled the blog altogether – embarrassed, ashamed and rather wishing it would all go away. Thanks to Monbiot it hasn’t. But what I would really like to say to the person I named is: I’m sincerely, totally and unreservedly sorry. (And if it’s any consolation, you should see some of the hatemail I’ve been getting from Monbiot’s Guardianista chums).

Fair enough.

I am still unconvinced by Delingpole's explanation of his outrage, however. The charge is that similar (but not exactly the same, I believe) letters were sent by different individuals to 200 different Conservative MPs and parliamentary candidates, which Delingpole thinks is evidence that a global warming lobby is behind the letters. Highly likely, but I am not convinced that is the problem Delingpole wants us to think it is. And it is a huge problem for him. Significant enough that he suggested it was "nauseating," a case of "stalking" by "eco-bullies," and the work of a "disgusting eco-fascist organisation." He even proposes "f--- off" would be the best response from Edwin Northover, the Tory PPC who received the email.

I don't buy his defense of his hysterical overreaction. To explain, here's how I replied to his blog on the Telegraph thread:

James, I have great difficulty believing you would get so hysterical (and you appear not to know how blatantly hysterical and unhinged your rants sound) were it an anti-AGW who had sent a letter as part of a campaign by an anti-AGW group.

The letter itself was so innocuous, the charge of bullying and stalking is just ridiculous. Unless MPs and PPCs are really so thin-skinned, in which case they’re in the wrong business.

I can’t help but see a parallel with last week’s ruling in the US that corporations should be free to provide unlimited finance to political parties. The argument I heard from the political right was that a corporation was protected by the First Amendment (free speech) just as surely as an individual. Every group is made up of individuals. An individual pressing a PPC or MP for answers is valid, but several individuals making a coordinated effort to press for answers is bullying? It was very clear in this weekend’s debacle who was bullying who.

Granted, Monbiot has a political axe to grind with all this, but even if he’s a broken clock… you know the saying.

*Denialists, feel free to educate me on the appropriate inoffensive term for someone who denies anthropocentric global warming.

Why is the Daily Mail still here?

While browsing the website of the Press Complaints Commission (in relation to James Delingpole's appalling behaviour at Telegraph Blogs this weekend - I haven't lodged a complaint, but I don't doubt many people have), I noted the following regulation:

The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

How on earth are the tabloids still going?