Journalism (Room) 101

Mark Steyn's been linking to some pro and con sites regarding the Human Rights Tribunal, and I check in now and then to see what's going on.

I was looking at this article by John Miller, who has a piece on a website called The Canadian Journalism Project. Steyn has him as a journalism professor. As boring and dry as that sounds, I decided to read his bit all the way through.

I've been calling for the mainstream press to get on board against this human rights business for a while. Instead, I get this:

Journalistic opinion is hailing Mark Steyn, of all people, as the new poster child for freedom of expression in Canada.

I beg to differ.

Miller has a problem with Mark Steyn, whose writing he declares both xenophobic and Islamophobic. Miller thinks the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal should take Steyn down a peg or two. This line of Miller's will give you a good first impression. His lectures must be a blast: "That is the law as it stands, and everyone must obey the law."

When I read that note from Squaresville, I sank a little lower into my chair and let my eyes glaze over. From then on, I was on auto-pilot, waiting for the buried lead (cool - I just used some hip journo-speak) to rear its head.

It comes at the end of Miller's essay. After he's done declaring Steyn's article a work of bigotry, Miller gets to the point:

Steyn and Maclean’s also appear to violate a great many of the principles and guidelines for reporting that the CAJ [Canadian Association of Journalists] adopted in 2002. They include (to name only the most obvious ones)...

Horrors! Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and violating the CAJ's principles.

Actually, I figured that's what Miller's problem was. It's not that Steyn's a bigot, it's that Steyn's not a real journalist. He doesn't toe the CAJ line. He shouldn't be playing with Miller's toys. Steyn didn't quote enough sources, or give enough references, or otherwise follow the rules of the CAJ (which is pretty funny, since the CAJ intervened on Maclean's behalf in BC and wants them off the hook, rules are meant for bending, so forth).

Still, let me play devil's advocate. Here's what Miller says, with my comments to follow.

It [Steyn's article] is contrary to the value of keeping the news comprehensive and proportional – specifically by “inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative.”

Sounds like how I describe strip clubs to my girlfriend. Still, let's say it's true, that Steyn waxed negative. So what? Where is this mighty book of values kept, and when did it become law? If Steyn is guilty of breaking some sort of ethics, then newspapers can refuse to print him, and Maclean's can stop running his stuff. This does not mean that a government agency has the right to tell Maclean's what to print afterwards (yes, John, Maclean's is the real issue here, no matter how much you want it to be about the xenophobic writer).

It violates the discipline of verification – specifically by not “seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking various sides for comment.”

There's no way Miller can know any of that, unless he was sitting in the room when Steyn wrote the piece, or he broke into Steyn's pad and stole his notes. (Dear Journalism Professor: when you see the words "Newsweek stands by its story," it's because Newsweek knows more about the story than you do, but isn't disclosing the sources). But, again, let's say it's true. Big deal. If John Miller was an editor of a paper and one of his reporters wrote a fabricated story about neo-Nazis, I doubt he'd agree to a human rights commission forcing him to run an essay supportive of neo-Nazis. No, John Miller would use the old "Miller's Magazine regrets the error," run an op-ed berating itself, and that would be that.

And it runs contrary to a journalist’s first obligation to the truth – specifically by neglecting “the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts.”

Um, sources please? Again, there's no way he can know any of that. He's making it up. He has no clue what sources Steyn and Maclean's looked at two years ago, and which ones they found credible or not. Earlier in his piece, Miller says that he spent a few minutes Googling Steyn's subject, and he found entirely different facts and arguments. No surprise. That's why there's dozens of books on the Kennedy assassination. Nobody agrees on anything. But does the good professor really believe that this means Maclean's should be found guilty of promoting hatred in British Columbia?

Other specific claims in the article are questionable. For example, Steyn states that high birthrates in Muslim countries “will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia” by mid-century. Yemen’s population in 2007 was 22 million, and Russia’s was 141 million. Barring some historic collapse of the Russian population, Yemen is not going to overtake it by 2050.

Note the key words. Questionable. Barring. Not exactly a damning assessment of Steyn's article. If something is questionable, then it is possible. I also like the "barring some historic collapse" bit. Okay, but what if the collapse happens? One, Yemen would be pretty crowded, and two, Miller's argument would cave in.

Indeed, one is tempted by this evidence to conclude that Steyn’s article was not journalism at all, but a “polemic” – which my dictionary defines as a selective attack.

Damn, a journalism prof that has to look up "polemic." I hope he paused for irony when he saw what it meant. Miller's whole article reads like a polemic - a very selective attack against the xenophobic, Islamophobic writings of Mark Steyn.

Let's be real. Miller kicks off his piece by calling Steyn's work xenophobic and Islamophobic, and uses exactly one source to back up the bigotry claims (a year-old book review; the rest is just his opinion). Tsk, tsk. He then Googles some of his own facts, cherry picks the good ones, and uses them to refute Steyn's piece. In essence, he did to Steyn what he says Steyn did to the world.

You know what? That's exactly what he should do. That's called arguing. Anyone can do it, and Miller just did. Asking the state to step in and shut Steyn up because he doesn't follow the rules of the BCHRT or the CAJ is chicken, and it's a crock.

What is it with the guys in the writing game that don't see the writing on the wall? It might be Steyn today, but later on it could be some CAJ member's career on the line. It wouldn't help the reporter to know that a journalism professor, John Miller, once told the human rights commission that a lack of references should be a factor in judging someone as a promoter of hate speech.