What a terrible indictment of the times we live in
Oh this again, or rather, still. Always. Never not. Woman interviews an idol of the right, woman is target of a torrent of abuse. The woman is Cathy Newman of Channel 4 (the UK one), the idol of the right is Jordan Peterson.
Ben de Pear, the editor of Channel 4 News, said Newman had been subjected to “vicious misogynistic abuse”. Having to calling in security specialists was a “terrible indictment of the times we live in”, he said.
Newman interviewed the psychologist, Jordan Peterson, about gender on Tuesday. A video of the full 30-minute interview has been watched more than 1.6m times on the Channel 4 News YouTube page and has attracted more than 36,000 comments.
I’ve watched a bit of it. She challenges some of his claims, as interviewers sometimes do.
The combative Channel 4 interview led to praise for Peterson and criticism for Newman on some right-leaning sites. James Delingpole, a Breitbart columnist, said the interview marked a “pivotal victory in the culture wars” and that the “weaknesses of the regressive left have never been more cruelly or damningly expose”. Douglas Murray in the Spectator said: “I don’t think I have ever witnessed an interview that is more catastrophic for the interviewer.”
Newman has faced a wave of abuse and threats online, including on Twitter. There is no suggestion that Peterson, Delingpole or Murray are behind the threats or instigated them.
Are they, I wonder, doing anything to try to discourage them? Are they bothering to say they don’t admire fans who instigate waves of abuse and threats? Are they taking a moment to say that disagreeing with Cathy Newman need not entail abuse and threats?
De Pear said on Twitter on Friday: “Our Channel 4 News on-screen journalists expect to be held to account for their journalism but the level of vicious misogynistic abuse, nastiness, and threat to Cathy Newman is an unacceptable response to a robust and engaging debate with Jordan Peterson.
“Such is the scale of threat we are having to get security specialists in to carry out an analysis. I will not hesitate to get the police involved if necessary. What a terrible indictment of the times we live in.”
Newman retweeted De Pear’s posts. In response to Murray’s column – in which he said Newman should get Channel 4 to remove the video from the internet because of how “catastrophic” it was – she said earlier in the week: “Always grateful for advice from Douglas Murray but I won’t be suing or taking out a super-injunction. I thoroughly enjoyed my bout with Jordan Peterson as did hundreds of thousands of our viewers. Viva feminism, viva free speech. Stay tuned Douglas.”
Cue the abuse and threats.
I kind of want to watch this to see what the fuss is about but I find Peterson mind numbing. He reminds me of Plantinga, who I put WAY more effort into understanding than he ultimately turned out to be worth once I finished. He gives me a sort of “I’m pretty sure what you’re saying will turn out to be vapid once I spend an hour parsing through it and all the supporting material I’m told I need to read to understand it” vibe.
Why ask your readership rhetorical questions that they’re hardly in a position to answer, especially when you haven’t mentioned anything that was an actual threat?
The answer is up there now so you can update your post.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/21/no-excuse-for-online-abuse-says-professor-in-tv-misogyny-row
Why not?
But seriously – since I introduced the three questions with “I wonder” I think your implication that I expected readers to answer is silly. I also think my meaning is quite clear.
You answered your own question with the fifth word.
“But seriously – since I introduced the three questions with “I wonder” I think your implication that I expected readers to answer is silly. I also think my meaning is quite clear.”
Well I guess what threw me off was that this was a blog post, with a comment section, rather than an entry in your diary, so naturally I assumed a response was desired. What also threw me off was that if you did not want answer, then just saying “I wonder” would mean that you were content to leave the issue broached but unresolved, which is not your style. Your interpretation of the “I wonder” statement also suggests that the matter should be left to innuendo, which is beneath you. I assumed that you would prefer to know whether the innuendo was factually supported.
Anyway, I’ve cited an article that tells you the answer, yet you still didn’t update or delete the post, and didn’t address my point that the post should have been updated. If you don’t trust the Guardian’s reporting, then it would have been an easy matter to have said so.
You know, you could just say “here’s the answer to your question” and post the link to the article that’s dated two days later than this post. I don’t necessarily update posts to add information that appears days later, much less delete them.