|
Had Kathy Shaidle asked me, I'd have advised her not to talk to The London Free Press. I don't have any hard and fast rules, but in general with public broadcasters - CBC, BBC, etc - I only do live interviews so they can't edit you into what Kathy calls "ransom-note racism", and I don't talk to print reporters I don't know, at least by reputation. Others have different strategies: my radio pal Hugh Hewitt does print interviews on condition that he records it and has the right to play the whole thing on his show after the published version appears. Some reporters are biased; others are lazy and simply not up to speed on the story they're meant to be reporting (like several of the chaps outside the courthouse in Vancouver last year); and a few are content to be spoonfed their lines by various interested parties. There's no point waiting till publication to find out which it is.
As to the category Randy Richmond falls into, I can't recall the last time I read a story on a controversial writer in which the journalist secures an interview with said controversial writer and then uses only one quote from her - which happens to be shorter than the one he uses from the booker of the event, and as long as the one he uses from ol' Catsmeat Kinsella, who suprisingly found time between issuing writs to speak to Randy and clobber Miss Shaidle in a soundbite.
This is a very different approach from, say, the nearly five dozen stories Mr Richmond has done on Canada's most prominent Stormfront member, Richard Warman. Take, for example, Mr Richmond's July 31st 2005 tongue-bath, "Fight Of A Lifetime: Ottawa Lawyer Richard Warman Has Incurred The Wrath Of North America's Neo-Nazis, Racists, Skinheads And Supremacist Leaders Of All Strikes'. It's not available online, so you'll have to make a trip to the London library. But can you take a wild guess from the headline how that piece turned out? No long interviews cut down to one 25-word quote, but instead all the time in the world for a bit of leisurely scene-setting color from Lucy's youth:
The first day he bought the bike, Richard Warman made it look like junk.
He wrapped the entire glittering bike, which cost him three weeks' pay, in black hockey tape. He worked in a rough neighbourhood at the time and figured the uglier the bike looked, the less likely it would get stolen.
Over the next 14 years, the tape faded to a putrid grey and the edges curled, the gears and other workings grew out of date and mechanics told him to buy a new bike instead of keeping this one on the road.
Warman, 35, still rides that bike every day to work in Ottawa, even on a cold February day when the temperature drops to -20C when he leaves the office to meet a reporter.
When he settles into a favourite pub, it is clear he and the old bike are well suited to each other. He orders a vegetarian meal and insists on reusing his beer glass to save on dishwashing water.
When the interview continues in his apartment, he introduces cats -- abused or abandoned by previous owners -- that he rehabilitates for an animal shelter. With a thin build, receding red hair shaved to the skull, glasses, he looks the part of the lefty, bicycle-obsessed lawyer he is.
But he's also as tough and scrappy as that bike...
Etc, etc. Like Barbara Cartland salivating over a Regency buck. (By the way, does Lucy take in abandoned cats in order to have something ready to microwave when Warren shows up?)
As with his piece on Kathy Shaidle, Randy Richmond interviewed other people for his profile of tough scrappy Lucy. For Kathy, he sought out Catsmeat Kinsella and Bernie Farber, both very hostile to her. For his piece on Warman, he also sought out dissenting views - from "Matt Lauder of Guelph":
"Richard is bugging the pants off these people. They don't have money," says noted hate fighter Matt Lauder of Guelph. "They are running scared."
So Mr Richmond's treatment of Lucy is strikingly different from his treatment of Kathy. I think she should have passed.
But so should Bernie Farber, the head honcho of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Even for a man who seems at best useless and at worst a colossal millstone round the neck of his organization, this doesn't seem a smart move. When explicitly eliminationist, genocidal threats against Jews - and Jewish children - were being yelled on the streets of Toronto, Montreal and Calgary, Kathy Shaidle and a handful of other Canadian bloggers were there to record it - and Bernie wasn't. No doubt he and Catsmeat and Richard Warman were too busy, off in the banqueting suite of some hotel awarding awards for Most Outstandingly Outstanding Anti-Hate Warrior of the Millennium back and forth to each other all afternoon. When he did finally glance out of the limo on the way back from the ceremony, the pathetic Mr Farber was crass enough to claim credit for the work of others.
Kathy Shaidle is right. These guys will all end up in the Order of Canada. And that's grand for them. And for those Canadian Jews who think the biggest menace they face right now is neo-Nazi skinhead white supremacists. If that's what you're worried about, Bernie and Lucy are the go-to guys.
But, if you think the challenges Canadian Jews face lie elsewhere, then these cardboard warriors are worse than irrelevant: Their stupidity helped build the ugly world exposed on those Toronto streets, and the censorship that they've enthusiastically championed over the years will be used to protect those groups from scrutiny. The Blazing Cat, not yet taken in by Lucy Warman, has more on the issue here. But, if you live in London, Ontario, don't rely on Randy Richmond, Mr Warman's devoted stenographer. Go see Kathy, Ezra Levant and Salim Mansur for yourself - if you can.
[UPDATE: Interestingly, unlike Catsmeat, Lucy or Bernie, Salim Mansur is the only person connected with this story who actually lives in London, and Randy Richmond, Vintage Bicycling Correspondent and Missing Cats Editor of The London Free Press, made no attempt to seek comment from him. I understand, if the sponsors of the event accede to the pressure of Catsmeat, Bernie and Bike Boy, he will not take part, either, and I doubt Ezra would. So London's Jewish community will have lost three real champions for human rights in exchange for remaining in the good books of three self-aggrandizing buffoons. Good luck with that. More from Miss Shaidle here.]
|
