People that care about facts have known Hari doesn't care about facts for a long time.

As David A-G says above, this is becoming a key divide between London's journalists: do you care about truth or ideology? For ideologues, a "good chap" lying in a "good cause" appears fine.

Which of course it is not.

The British media is stuffed full of ignorance and mistruth, and in recent years the Left has fallen foul of this cancer. It's a good thing he's been found out, it will serve to warn others that journalism still has ethics. It is a terrible thing that he hasn't been sacked.

Quite often in the pat I found myself reading and agreeing with Hari's articles, not just the 'interviews'. I'd like to be able to defend his writing, but there is no way on earth that anyone can defend what, on the face of it, is a at best messing with events.

Political journalists and columnists seek to do a job which by it's very nature is to inform a debate in a democracy which influences people at all levels. To do that, you need to trust that the writer is not embellishing in any way what so ever. I condemn Hari with the same gusto that I condemn anyone else who manipulate the factual accuracy of their output.

Yes, you can write a philosophical PhD on the meaning of the word truth. But in some cases like this you can't ignore that the truth is black and white. He should be sacked. No question of it.

I didn't see many folk defending Hari. I saw several putting his actions into context and arguing that they were not plagiarism or misrepresentation. Is that what you're calling defence? Why?

He's only apologising because he's been 'caught'

Yes, this has been a rather disappointing episode on many levels, from Hari's bad practice and poor behaviour to the mealy mouthed rubbish coming from people I greatly respect, like Ben Goldacre.

Having said that, the sight of odious twerps like Toby Young gleefully jumping on the bandwagon is mildly nauseating.

David, I *long* for the day that we criticise Nadine Dorries for reading an entire book on Marxism in order to better represent the point an interviewee is trying to make.

Seriously, though, I don't see what's so bad in saying that what Johann Hari did sounds like sharp practice - and I hope he wouldn't do it again - but that it is not comparable to say, the News of the World hacking scandal or the actions of Jayson Blair.

As for extending the same latitude to "people we don't agree with", I think that's absolutely right. If, say, Peter Hitchens had done this, I hope I'd say exactly the same - it's sharp practice, but it's not a hanging offence.

It sounds to me as if we should be arguing for more forgiveness for everyone's mistakes, rather than ramping up the vitriol dished out to both sides.

I concur with mattwardman in viewing Hari as a noteworthy and responsible journalist when he researches and questions an issue but not worthy of note when in polemicist mode (which includes most of his economic commentary). Liberal he most certainly is and inspiring when banging that particular drum but rational he very frequently is not I'm afraid.

Homophobia, ha ha. But seriously though, another story broke yesterday which is in danger of being buried in Hari news: Spectator apologizes for Melanie Phillips article. Lest we forget

"An apology to Alastair Crooke

A blog by Melanie Phillips posted on 28 January 2011 reported an allegation that Alastair Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum, had been expelled from Israel and dismissed for misconduct from Government service or the EU after threatening a journalist whose email he had unlawfully intercepted. We accept that this allegation is completely false and we apologise to Mr Crooke."

I think the problem here is that what he did wrong was misrepresented repeatedly, and now a lot of people apparently think that he "made things up" or misrepresented people, for which there isn't much evidence.

It's also unattractive to watch macho pile-ups on people on twitter, especially when you have to watch middle aged men behaving like teenage boys (naming no names of course - that would be inflammatory). I like to think I'd feel the same about an equivalent attack on a conservative journalist who had done a similar thing, but of course I can't be sure.

Other than that, what Helen L-H said.

Although I do think the twitter pile-on was unedifying for most involved on the attack, including yourself, I am sorry about the ad hom (pedantically - it was more of a petty insult than an ad hom given that it wasn't really part of an argument). I was possibly trying to one-up some of the snarkiness I saw on your twitter feed yesterday (and it was a scan of it so I may have misinterpreted things). You're right that there was no need, it was pointlessly harsh, and it's a bad habit that I'm trying to stop.

I don't really understand your point so maybe I'm going to miss it spectacularly here, but I'm going to try and address it anyway. There was and has been plenty of misrepresentation, if you take Hari's account of it at face value (maybe you don't). The basic form of the joke misrepresented the issue:

Joke - Hari takes a quote, inserts it into a completely invented interview setting (supposed interview setting) apropos of nothing and completely mangles the meaning.

Reality (according to Hari) - carefully subbing one quote for an exactly equivalent quote in an actual interview setting (not a supposed interview setting).

I actually didn't really mind the jokes. Some of them were funny, and they don't really have to be totally accurate as they are jokes. I disliked the explicit misrepresentation, which has happened on twitter and in the comment threads. I've heard people saying that he makes stuff up "on the hoof" which is untrue (this was some twitter user quoted in one of the Dan Sabbagh Graun articles from yesterday). People have said that he is a plagiarist, also untrue in my view. People have acted as if he plucked the stuff surrounding the copied-and-pasted quotes ("he looked down and said quietly..." and so on) out thin air, which again he says is untrue.

I don't think what he did was great even under his own explanation, but it has clearly been misrepresented, repeatedly and in a wide variety of different ways. I agree with Kelner that a lot of the stuff has been from people fabricating a sense of outrage at someone who they basically already hate - I like him but clearly a lot of people don't at all, and I can see why - and using it as an excuse for a pile on. As for "wishful thinking", I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be wishing for but I don't think that's true or fair either.

"Reality (according to Hari) - carefully subbing one quote for an exactly equivalent quote in an actual interview setting (not a supposed interview setting)."

Erm - no quote is an exact equivalent of another quote.

One thing can be a paraphrase of another, and in some contexts that's fine, but in the context of an interview I really don't think it is.

If I'm reading an interview with Gerry Adams or whoever, I want to know what Gerry Adams said, in the interview room, in response to questions. I want to know how he responds to being asked things.

Does he fumble around for the right answer? Does he expound at length, or reply in clipped, Laconic phrases? Is he eloquent? Does he dodge questions?

Hari says that he himself is more eloquent in writing than in person. Well, a lot of people are. I am. But not everyone is and I don't know if Gerry Adams is; I want to know.

If you take the paraphases-are-fine theory to its logical conclusion, a paraphrase of a great novel would still be a great novel. It wouldn't. It only would be, if the paraphraser were themselves a great writer.

People have styles too, just like books, I want to know the interviewees style, in person, if I wanted to read them I'd read them.

@ David Allen Green

With regards to the "misrepresentation" issue, on another one of the NS blogs, Guy Walters says this (in the comments):

"Anybody can cobble together someone's autobiog and few other pieces, insert some 'looking out the window' (a Hari favourite) or a drawn on a cigarette, and viola! Instant exclusive interview! The red tops do it all time, and they're excoriated for it, so why not Hari?"

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/guy-walters/2011/06/chavez-hari-interv...

Do you think that's misrepresenting what he's done (genuinely curious)? To me it reads very very differently to Hari's account (whether you take that seriously or not is another question).

@ Neuroskeptic

"Erm - no quote is an exact equivalent of another quote."

Good point, I worded that clumsily. But I'm sure you know what I was getting at (substitute 'exactly' for 'essentially' if you like). The rest of your post is all well and good, but it's a personal preference as to what you want from an interview. Not everyone would necessarily feel the same (I agree with you for interviews of people I already know stuff about, I agree with Hari for interviews of people with interesting ideas that I don't know much about). It doesn't seem to me that it is a matter of professional ethics, or that your way is the only acceptable way of running an interview. I think we'd have a more boring press if everyone had to do everything in the same style. As you can probably tell, I actually have a lot of sympathy with his "intellectual portrait" defence.

Did you just write an article pointing out the phenomenon that people are more likely to forgive/defend bad behaviour from people they like than people they don't? Honestly?

Wow, before now I assumed humans were rational people who ignored emotional ties to others. But you've opened my eyes, David.

So you mean to say the mothers of defendants who stand outside court saying their son is innocent might not have reviewed all the evidence and instead speaking from their maternal love? Christ. This changes EVERYTHING!

"@davidallengreen:
Drawing a line on Hari business is right, even if it means I bin my NS post on all the "liberal critical" tweeters who made excuses for him."

Didn't quite land in the bin, did it David? Your ego gave way in the end.

For Hari read Laws.

"Naming names would be inflammatory". Not really: naming names would back up your argument with facts and enable your readers to assess independently whether your account of these currently unnamed people's writings is accurate, and how widespread such a phenomenon is. That is what good journalists do. Without it, your readers have no idea whether you are creating a straw man or not. I think you should name names.

@ tgreenan

First (by your own admission) you insult me, and then you ask me to help you sort out you rambling thoughts?

Wow.

@ Adam Grace

I am sorry I did not write the post you would have written if you were me. Why not write the post you would like me to have written yourself?

@ Simon

My point is simply that those who use the rhetoric of a principled approach should be seen to apply it generally.

I do not know Hari. But if it was my friend under attack, I would either apply the same principles I expect from others, or I would just shut up.

Fair point. I'm a fan of most of Hari's writings, and when I found out what he had done, I was upset and felt - however irrationally - a little betrayed. As a freelance journo myself, I know how important it is to quote people accurately - not just to C+P what they have written elsewhere.

If you want to quote from books or other interviews in a long profile piece, fine, go ahead - just make damn sure you attribute your sources. Hari could have done that ("Elsewhere, Negri has written that: 'blah blah', and today he expounds on that point: 'blah blah blah'") without any trouble so he deserves a lot of the criticism he is receiving.

And it's not just the quotes.

Negri's publisher Rowan Wilson had accused Hari of making up some of the details which are supposed to show that Negri is rude and a bit shifty.

http://deterritorialsupportgroup.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/hari-kari-ii-a...

I wish Hari's supporters would stop saying what a good writer he is, if he makes up the 'writerly' bits too. Or at least encourage him to move into fiction.