Trying to deny a columnist an outlet for her controversial opinions? Oh my, how Fascist!!
But wait, what are the people behind Fire Margaret Wente" actually asking people to do? From the Facebook page:
1. Send a letter to the Globe and Mail:
To: Letters@globeandmail.com, egreenspon@globeandmail.com, sstead@globeandmail.com, nacampbell@globeandmail.com, pmartin@globeandmail.com, nhassan@globeandmail.com
Cc: mwente@globeandmail.com
2. Call the Globe and Mail
416-585-5000
Find Patrick Martin and Edward Greenspon in the directory, and demand Wente be dismissed.
3. Cancel your Globe subscription, or call someone you know who subscribes and encourage them to cancel.
4. Educate yourself about the real history of Indigenous peoples on this land, and share accurate information about what went on, and what's going on, with your friends and colleagues.
Well, it sounds like they are asking folks to use their powers of persuasion on the Globe's editorial staff. Scary shit! And it also sounds like their asking people to exercise their rights as a consumer to withdraw the money they send every year to the paper and use it to purchase other goods and services. Can you not just feel the Totalitarianism oozing off your computer screen?
And lets imagine for a moment that they succeed: the G&M looks to its bottom line and, weighing subscriptions lost vs. losses it might take were Ms. Wente to write for some other publication (maybe these guys), they decide to throw her overboard.
Has something undemocratic happened? Hardly, I would argue. In fact I would even go further: something wonderfully Capitalist has happened. The Market responded to the desires of the marketplace. Carry on Capitalism!
12 comments:
There are probably some people working at the Globe and Mail sympathetic with the campaign. When she was the Managing Editor she managed to alienate practically everyone - leading to an actual staff revolt.
Has something undemocratic happened? Hardly, I would argue. In fact I would even go further: something wonderfully Capitalist has happened. The Market responded to the desires of the marketplace. Carry on Capitalism!
Yep. This is about as democratic as you can get...people expressing their opinions and voting with their feet. And their wallets.
Good on them.
I already cancelled my subscription, not just because of Wente, although her uninteresting and/or irritating column takes up far too much space, day after day, in that paper. I just found it had gotten lousy...unreadable Lifestyle section gushing about the wonders of consumerism, Business section obsessed with business personalities, completely ignorable book review section, poor John Doyle stuck reviewing garbage television, etc. etc.
I recommend everyone cancel their print paper subscriptions until these people get serious and start doing journalism that understands public interest again.
I just checked the update on Chris Silly's...er Selley's...blog on this at Macleans:
"That’s fine; there are no “rules” for columns, any more than there are for blogs. If the Globe wants to keep running her, I’ll defend to the death their right to do so..."
Gahd, these blowhards. Most of these careerist egomaniacs wouldn't defend to the "withdrawal of a travel perq" anyone's right to say anything. Macleans "disappeared" two posts criticising Mike Duffy's reporting.
I cancelled my subscription after subscribing for many years when it became apparent that their editorial perspective was grossly incompatible with my own (aka they endorsed Harper).
Ann D
http://www.onewomanoneblog.com
I've known her for years as the woman too lazy to sort her recyclables, yet found the strength to complain about recycling in her column many times. Apparently there is empty space in Canada begging for her garbage too, and she shouldn't have to pay to dispose of it there.
I don't actually think Wente's a racist, but it doesn't even matter anymore. Petty racism has morphed into the far more intractable cultural chauvinism that enables people to claim superiority by being part of that culture while studiously avoiding knowing anything about it (its history, the best of its cultural products, etc. etc.) or being particularly concerned about its standards of excellence.
This is something people like Chris Silly and the rest of his Jutish and/or Saxon tribe go to great lengths to ignore as they screech incessantly about freedom of speech and focus on why everyone else is just so objectively deficient all the time.
In any case, whatever this all is, it's above all lousy journalism.
nothing undemocratic - you are correct - it is simply bone-headed
that wretched wench Wente deserves to be ignored
Let's see ... if rightwingnutter whackjobs attack Heather Mallick for her opinion regarding Sarah Palin, which as it turned out, happened to be right on the money, they are exercising freedom of speech, no?
So if fair-minded readers loudly object to Wente's convoluted and biased verbosity, how can that be anti-democratic? And when they cancel their subscriptions which, as consumers they can do, that is only consequent.
Fire Margaret Wente? Why stop there? Tar and feather her too. It would be right up your alley.
And somebody be sure to inform Barbara Hall that Ms. Wente expressed an opinion contrary to PC orthodoxy. There must be a Section 13 offence in Wente's writings somewhere.
Remember, if enough of you small-minded vigilantes get together, there is nothing too inconsequential you can't accomplish.
if enough of you small-minded vigilantes get together, there is nothing too inconsequential you can't accomplish.
Who's he kidding? We can't even get him to stop posting his inconsequential drivel here.
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