I’ve always respected Susan Delacourt. But tonight she tweeted something I found offensive. Not just to me but to all of us who read paid journalists. She promoted a circling the wagons defence of Christie Blatchford, which paradoxically referenced George Orwell in Blatchford’s favour, in the form of an ugly column written seemingly by a knowing source,Bert Archer. The column covers territory not much different than the bilge frothing from the Post and Sun medias in the wake of Jack Layton’s passing. It’s worse.
I will commend Susan for immediately responding in private to my reply to her initial tweet. Thank you. But she’s wrong in promoting this canned drivel from an obvious industry insider. Journalists should respect us readers, not just themselves. Writing between the lines on the day of the death of anyone – let alone a popular, if not iconic figure to millions – to promote your agenda is wrong. That is what Christie Blatchford did.
Blatchford is most certainly no George Orwell. He was prescient; she is just a cog in a machine promoting an agenda, passing the ball to the Kays for follow up, opening the field for the Levants and Corens to pile on. That is not journalism. It is bloodsport and entertainment. Archer’s follow up and Delacourt’s promotion of it is just the last gasps of a dying industry coming up for air.
I don’t blame someone for being loyal. I admire it in fact. But this is important stuff. It’s historical in a way. For a reason only known to her, Susan Delacourt has come down on the wrong side of history. I don’t know why and I guess I don’t care anymore.
Heroes they say are hard to find. And the one place you will not find them any longer is on the altogether too cozy confines of Canadian journalism. With Layton’s passing and the ugly immediate reaction from the right, lines have been drawn. Right vs. left no longer matters – when it comes to Canadian journalism – it is just journalists vs. the rest of us.