“Death of a Rag”? Aw, c’mon, Balb. That’s mean. It’s not nice to gloat just because the Western Standard is falling victim to the market forces it worshipped.
Bad writing, bad editing and hilarious pretensions notwithstanding, I always got a kick of out Ezra’s cheerfully inept, vulgar imitation of what grown-ups call “journalism”. Whether it was the world’s most fraudulent mock poll, a stable of writers that made Canadian Sentinel look like Thomas Friedman, or contortions defending Harper’s gaffes that would put a Shanghai acrobat to shame, there was always something there to giggle over. I mean, what can you say about a publication that admitted Anonalogue to their team of Special Guest Bloggers?
I think what I enjoyed most, though, was Ezra’s shameless ability to shill on behalf of his rag by portraying himself as some kind of free-speech martyr. What a great marketing ploy…and he played to his dim neo-con fan base perfectly.
Case in point: the following heroic excerpt from his self-penned obit on the infamous publication of the Mohammed cartoons. Cue violins as Ezra solemnly intones:
I hope that the fact that we neither suffered physical nor financial harm for doing so serves as encouragement to other media in the future to resist radical Muslim calls for censorship.
Never suffered “financial harm”? I should say not. Ezra milked that little bit of exploitation for every penny it was worth. Remember?
Prior to publication, he announced gravely that he expected to suffer dire financial consequences from the “heroic” act of publishing months-old mediocre cartoons that every eight-year old on the planet with an internet connection had already yawned over. He urged us all to get out there to “support free speech” and “give the finger to the Mullahs” by bravely buying his magazine.
The more rabid URQ blog (Janke and SDA are two that I remember) dutifully swallowed this sales pitch whole, and urged their readers to buy multiple copies.
The issue sold like hotcakes, and no newstands were burned (much to Ezra’s disappointment, no doubt.)
Weeks later, when a complaint was lodged at the Human Rights Commission, Ezra scrambled back up onto his Free Speech Martyr Podium, and begged piteously for donations from readers, bloggers, and URQs of limited wit but adequate means, to help defray what he predicted would be the ruinous costs of this vicious legal assault. (I was actually the subject of an HRC complaint once, incidentally. Cost to me: $0.00). And once again, the Rage Brigade scrambled to contribute.
And now we learn that in fact Ezra suffered “no financial harm” from the episode. No shit. I only have two questions:
a) How much additional revenue did his rag make from this cheap piece of exploitative sensationalism?
b) Was all the money he got from the poor dupes out there to deal with the anticipated costs (you know, that crushing legal challenge that, as he now admits, resulted in “no financial harm”) tracked separately and accounted for to his donors, or did they simply disappear into general revenues?
Ah, well. Why be churlish now? The rag is dead, and Canada’s journalistic landscape just got a little more boring.
The Western Standard lost its Air Canada contract specifically over the cartoons, so I’m not sure exactly where you can pass off a lack of financial suffering based on his stand.