The Journalism Doctor

For the last month, I have been trying to get Mark Steyn to verify a quotation he uses to characterize the threat that he feels Muslims pose to western civilization. Now he has finally done that. What can I say? Congratulations. It’s a start. It’s progress. At issue was the veracity of the quotation he picked up from Oriana Fallaci and used in a review he wrote in Maclean’s maga ...

The preamble of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1985 asserts that “the Canadian Human Rights Act provides that every individual should have an equal opportunity with other individuals to make the life that the individual is able and wishes to have, consistent with the duties and obligations of that individual as a member of society.” In the current tumultuous debate about whether ...

With all due respect, Mark Steyn, I did not accuse you of making up a quote. You clearly accepted someone else’s word for it. But that’s not good journalism. Few journalists I know would take Oriana Fallaci’s word about Islam at face value the way you did, for reasons I will explain. You uncritically accepted her reference to the “Blue Book,” and went on to have fun with the notion of ...

I’ve spent the last week having my heart ripped out by Canada ’s right-wing blogosphere, and it hasn’t been a pretty sight. My sexual prowess has been questioned, I’ve been accused of being an ageing fossil who doesn’t know how to Google shit, a guilty white man ashamed of my race, an idiot and a pro-censorship traitor to journalism. My qualifications to teach anyone anything an ...

Journalistic opinion is hailing Mark Steyn, of all people, as the new poster child for freedom of expression in Canada . I beg to differ. His xenophobic and Islamophobic writings in Maclean’s magazine have prompted a complaint by Muslims to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. Hearings are being held in Vancouver this week. Section 7(1) of the B.C. Human Rights Co ...

Is it free speech or is it hate? So-called “free speech” advocates, who share a contempt for the kind of wisdom that can be meted out by human rights commissions, had a field day this week after the Ontario commission decided it didn’t have the mandate to consider a complaint against Maclean’s magazine – but criticized the article in question for promoting intolerance and Islamophobia ...

Ontario Superior Court File 08-CV-41020 isn’t attracting nearly the attention it should.   Submitted to court on March 3 by Richard G. Dearden, the five-page Notice of Libel represents the first time in Canadian history that a sitting prime minister has sued the Official Opposition. That alone should put it high on the agenda of every political columnist who covers the House of Commons. Y ...

Which is more important - fighting crime, or writing about it? Judging from the overwrought reaction of Canada's largest journalists' association, you'd think freedom of the press should always come first, even trumping the legal tools police may need to find out whodunit. The Canadian Association of Journalists, representing 1,500 members, says it is dismayed by an Ontario Court of A ...

The reaction against a 16-month-old article in Maclean’s magazine has caused a furor in Canadian journalism ranks, with many saying that freedom of expression itself is under attack. At issue is an October 2006 article “The Future Belongs to Islam,” written by Mark Steyn. In it, he claims that Muslims in the West are poised to take over entire societies and “the only question is how ...