Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Curious Case Of The Disappearing Quote

So, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, T.O. Sun reporter Kevin Connor wrote up a short piece re last week's protest outside of the Israeli consulate on Bloor Street.  Probably the most notable thing about it was the apology that soon appeared above its first paragraph:

A version of this story that briefly appeared on torontosun.com contained quotes wrongly attributed to Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress. The Sun regrets the error and apologizes to Mr. Farber.

I've emailed both the reporter and his boss (James Wallace) for clarification, but have received no response.  However,  here's the thing.  There are not many ways the fake quote (which can be seen here) could have made its way into the story.

1) Connor might have invented it, which is a firing offence.  Its also difficult to believe.

2) It could have originated with someone at the protest who decided to impersonate Farber as a means of embarrassing him/damaging his reputation.  This appears to be the opinion of blogger Arnie Lemaire, who also attended--ie The Sun got punk'd.  But in this instance, such a prank would have amounted to an illegal act.

And I would point out that someone has recently been impersonating the various players in the small circle of activists/culture warriors that involve themselves in the issues that Bernie also cares about.  For example, here . Furthermore, among this small circle at least one person has already developed a reputation for getting up to this kind of silliness.

Here's hoping The Sun lives up to its responsibility and at least gives some kind of explanation.  One of their reporters has either done something quite unethical or inadvertently aided a lawbreaker.

2 comments:

Just the facts, please said...

Stay on that one.

brennerman said...

What a weird thing. It is simply unrealistic given the state of how journalists are being scrutinized today to think that the reporter would cook his quotes. There is no way he would get away with it.