Bloggers aren’t journalists, although many give themselves affectations in that direction. Their work is generally not peer reviewed, fact-checked and edited before publication; they are not accountable to an employer or a board; they suffer no consequences when they’re wrong. But by and large, most political bloggers seem to want to base their arguments, and hopefully their beliefs, on fact.
Which is why bloggers who knowingly and deliberately lie, by omission or mistatement, are such a puzzle.
Case the First: SUZANNE carried a story a couple of months ago about a Poor Christian Gent in the maritimes who went to a meeting of Christian leaders and was brutally removed by the police, just because he wanted to talk to them about his concerns on abortion. Tragic, really.
Except that if you followed the link she provided, it became obvious she had omitted a few salient details:
- the meeting the Poor Christian Gent had disrupted was a press conference to announce an anti poverty initiative, and nothing to do with abortion;
- the Poor Christian Gent had provided the Christian leaders with written notice of his intention to disrupt the meeting unless they let him speak at their press conference;These facts were known to SUZANNE - they were described in detail on the blog from which she pulled the story - but she omitted them. It kinda didn’t fit with the “Poor, Poor Pitiful Us” message. The Poor Christian Gent in question has very slick prolife blog, and milked the story of his “brutal expulsion” for weeks.
(Interestingly, when I pointed all this out to the gentleman in question, with great civility, I was subsequently blocked from further comments).
Case the Second: The Muslim-Hater’s HomePage (otherwise known as the Centre for Vigilant Freedom, where Scenty now posts - a site calling for closer links between neo-Nazis and Muslim-Haters) posted an article about a riot in Amsterdam in a primarily Muslim-immigrant neighbourhood. The article concluded with the usual purse lipped sniff about the lack of condemnation from moderate Muslims.
Except…the original article from which the Haters drew their story concluded with the following paragraph: ‘Responding to the riots, Ahmed Marcouch, Moroccan-born chairman of the Slotervaart city council, said “it is always the same horrible people spoiling things for everyone.”
They omitted that. And when I pointed out that quote in the comments, with great civility, I was subsequently blocked from further comments on the site.
Case The Third: Five Feet of Cancerous Gall Bladder recently headlined an article, in the same great “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” tradition, “Canadian Catholic mag targeted by Human Rights Commission“.
Except…oh, heck, you don’t even have to go offsite to figure out that lie. Someone has filed a complaint against Catholic Insights. The Canadian Human Rights Commission isn’t “targeting” anyone - they’re acting on a complaint. Of course, the cause-du-jour among our leading URQs is the dismantling of the Human Rights Commission, an agency which places inconvenient limits on their ability to encourage us to share the hate - so hey, what’s “accuracy” got to do with it?
(For the sake of rhetorical symmetry, I wish I could report that I had been blocked from Shaidle’s site - I can’t unfortunately, because she doesn’t allow comments at all.)
I used to find this kind of thing genuinely confusing. But the answer, of course, is simple. These folks are simply propagandists. They have no interest in “truth” or “accuracy”. Facts are tools, not the foundation of an argument, to be selectively deployed as raw material for propaganda and ignored when inconvenient.
This explains the genuine incomprehension that SUZANNE and others exhibit when accused of freeping polls, awards, and other attempts to create a manipulated reality. Some of us are actually curious about how Canadians feel about abortion, or what the readers of blogs prefer - but the point, for propagandists, is simply the creation of new lie to further an ideological goal.
Which brings us round to the same old question. How good can your position be if you have to lie to support it?
How good can your position be if you have to lie to support it?
Ask Al Gore.