In a Globe and Mail op-ed piece entitled “CanWest: Don’t Vilify Muslims”, Mr. Mazen Chouaib, the executive director of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, misquoted a well-known internationally best-selling author—one of the best writers in Canada—National Post columnist George Jonas, in order for him to make what appeared to Jonas to be an argument critical of Jewish ownership of media.
This op-ed came on the heels of a revelation that CanWest group of papers (which includes National Post) made the conscious decision to call a spade a spade—in this case, to call a terrorist a “terrorist”, rather than a “militant” or “combatant”, etc., as Reuters and other ditherers do.
Jonas takes it amazingly in stride, considering the violation he must feel personally and professionally. Part of Jonas’ column of September 27 2004:
A bad apple in boxing may, like Mike Tyson, bite his opponent’s ear. In journalism, a Tyson-class breach of the rules would be to make up quotes.
Mazen Chouaib … did that last week in The Globe and Mail. In an op-ed piece entitled “CanWest: Don’t Vilify Muslims”, Mr. Chouaib attributed two lines to me which he claimed to quote from a syndicated CanWest column in June, 2002. “Islam is at fault for blowing up civilians, including women and children” read one line, according to Mr. Chouaib, and “[Islam] is the new evil empire” read the other.
I wrote neither of these lines. In his op-ed piece, Mr. Chouaib represented them as direct quotes from my column. The director of Canada-Arab Relations wasn’t merely trying to sneak in a quick punch below the belt by quoting me out of context; he was pulling a Mike Tyson.
[…]
Had Mr. Chouaib suggested in his piece that what I wrote amounted to saying that Islam was the new evil empire, I couldn’t have disputed that this was his view. I could only have replied that he was mistaken. My 2002 column was about Islamist extremism, not about Islam, which was (or ought to have been) clear to any reader. But though wrong, perhaps even wilfully wrong, Mr. Chouaib—and by extension The Globe and Mail—would not have stepped outside the boundaries of polemical journalism into the realm of forgery.
By attributing Mr. Chouaib’s interpretations to me, I suggest they did so.
[…]
A two-line correction acknowledging that I didn’t write the lines attributed to me would have indicated that the Globe has less tolerance for falsity than, say, CBS News.
So far no response. The Globe seems to tolerate falsity just fine. Pity.
Actually, CBS still seems fair and balanced to me here in Canada compared to Canada’s state-run CBC, which is unabashedly, openly, and hideously left-wing, while the state-run regulator, the CRTC, has still not lifted its ban on Fox News Channel.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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