The Sixth Estate

A flurry of emails and heartfelt apologies later, I feel pressed to add some additional commentary on a piece I published on Wednesday, which suggested that the Globe & Mail was recycling material from its sources on the topic of income inequality without full use of quotation marks. The original version of the piece could be read as indirectly proposing that this might be seen as plagiarism. It has been pointed out to me that it would be both unfair and, frankly, rude to level any such accusation without asking for comment from the accused first. Although asking for comment is really more of a mainstream media practice than an online blog practice, I will certainly accept the complaint. I wholeheartedly apologize to the Globe and to the reporter who produced the article in question, Tavia Grant.

Now, I would like to explain my reasoning behind the post so that readers can understand what happened. If we take the responses to the Margaret Wente “scandal” last year as a guideline, what we are actually dealing with here are very different expectations of what constitutes full and proper attribution. The rules differ between different professions, so different expectations aren’t terribly surprising. What you learned as the definition of plagiarism in university, for instance, may or may not apply as rigidly outside of the Ivory Tower. (Which you could pretty much say about everything you learned at university, I suppose.)

The University of Toronto defines plagiarism as the “publication as one’s own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas… of another.” Basically there are three forms of academic plagiarism, in declining order of severity. First, you can take someone else’s words and reproduce them as your own, without quoting them and without citing them — meaning you’re taking both their ideas, and the expression of their ideas. Second, you can take someone else’s words but cite their source — meaning you’ve taken the expression of their ideas, but have cited the origins of the ideas themselves. Third, you can refer to someone else’s ideas without citing them and without taking their words. The first is obvious plagiarism in any discipline. The third is only plagiarism in the strictest technical sense; even in the university, I don’t imagine it would lead to anything more than a mild reproof that you’re being “unoriginal.” Then there’s the question of intent, which separates something that arguably creates an appearance of plagiarism from something that really is a conscious attempt to steal material and lie to the reader. The second of these is a grave sin in any writing-related profession, and it is not my intention to say that something like this is occurring.

The uncertainty exists in cases where you cite your source, but then you use their words, or very near to their words, without using quotation marks. When is it okay to substantially reproduce someone else’s words without using quotation marks? In the university, basically, never. Concordia University’s plagiarism statement makes this clear for university students:

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Well, at least they’ve come out and said it: income inequality is a growing problem in Canada. The Globe & Mail said it. The Toronto Star said it. CBC said it. Even the National Post managed to get it out, interspersed amongst gripes about how Canadian income inequality isn’t nearly as bad as American income inequality, which, I suppose, it isn’t. All of this is based on a newly released Statistics Canada report which reveals that the income share of the richest 1% of Canadians has grown from over 7% of the economy in 1982 to over 10% today. It’s a good thing StatsCan writes press briefings to accompany its data releases. As you can see from the above linked commentary, that’s pretty much as far as our nation’s highly paid professional journalist corps managed to dig into this story.

That fact can be seen from a rather appalling interpretation of tax inequality in the StatsCan press release, which was eagerly picked up and echoed by the press corps: the notion that over the past 30 years the “tax burden” on the rich has increased. This is reported in all media. CBC even put it into the headline: “1% have seen their income increase over almost 30 years, but so has their tax burden.”

This is an incredible claim. I mean that in the most literal sense: it is not a credible claim. The tax burden of the rich has not increased, at least not in the sort of taxation measured in this report. You can check out the data for yourself if you don’t believe me, but in the meantime, here’s my summary: in 1982, the richest 1% took in an average of $117,400, and they had an average tax rate of 33%. In 2010, the richest 1% took in an average of $427,600, and they had an average tax rate of 33%. The bottom 90% paid 16% in taxes in 1982, and paid 14% in taxes in 2010.**

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The National Post has given considerable space to a vicious attack on homeopathy which, in turn, gave rise to the publication of a spiel by a defender of homeopathy. I have to say, I’m disappointed. But the latter advocate makes her case just about as well as it can be made. Karen Wehrstein even has a high-powered medical research journal to back up her side: the impressive-sounding “International Journal of High Dilution Research.”

This particular little tempest was provoked by the printing of an article by University of Alberta professor Timothy Caulfield which, at least in its online version, appeared to label practitioners of homeopathy as “witch doctors.” This is of course quite wrong. Homeopathy is not an indigenous traditional medicine suddenly exposed to the harsh racist light of Western medicine. Homeopathy is a theory for medical treatment which has solid roots in the history of science. Just like phlogiston. And ether. And alchemy.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the back-and-forth style of argumentation that the media prefers is very unhelpful in actually educating its readership — which is presumably the primary objective when it comes to topics like medicine. Instead, whatever the good intentions of Dr. Caulfield, what we end up with are competing arguments from authority. Which authority do you prefer: the Ivory Tower academic from Alberta, or the executive director of the Canadian Consumers Centre for Homeopathy? How does someone without a background in medical research determine which authority is more persuasive? How does one account for the fact that both groups claim the weight of medical research is on their side? Judging from the comments at the Post, homeopathy is still an open question.

A question which the Post’s editorial board evidently doesn’t feel qualified to answer. But I thought I’d throw my hat in, too, since not merely the National Post but Health Canada currently endorses homeopathy as a suitable medical treatment for Canadians, I thought it would be helpful to see how well Caulfield’s position stands up to Wehrstein’s. So. Caulfield, or Health Canada?

My approach will be somewhat different than Caulfield’s or Wehrstein’s, though. Instead, today we’ll walk through the theory and practice behind two medications. The first one will be Oscillococcinum, a treatment for influenza which Wehrstein notes is “one of the world’s most popular over-the-counter flu medicines.” Oscillococcinum is a homeopathy remedy. It comes from natural sources and millions swear by it.

The second will be oseltamivir, better known by its brand name Tamiflu. Tamiflu is not a homeopathic remedy. It has been invented by “real” conventional medicine, aka white-labcoatted doctors, aka Big Pharma. It is produced by massive corporations and stockpiled by governments.

I’m sure you’ve guessed by now which one will be endorsed by Sixth Estate.

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The Globe & Mail’s evidently terminal decline has accelerated to the point where it can now practically be measured by the day. It’s not just that they’ve abandoned the integrity of the free press for unflinching support of the government, even to the point of printing editorials defending the Cabinet from the Ethics Commissioner. It’s not just that they permit confirmed plagiarists to remain on staff as high-profile columnists — that one’s recent output, incidentally, includes some real quality hard-hitting pieces, like how firefighters are mostly unnecessary because most calls are false alarms.

Last week, the Globe’s public editor Sylvia Stead, the one who printed a shameless and inexcusable defence of her plagiarizing colleague last fall, published a pair of doozies of her own. The first made what was arguably a far bigger deal than was remotely justified over the fact that the Globe’s “new corrections policy” had swung into action immediately after the paper printed a statement that the Toronto Maple Leafs will not have any Thursday games in 2013 — a statement which turns out to be as baseless as it is uninteresting. The same corrections policy has already swung into action to correct some of Wente’s latest gaffes, but not, noticeably, all of them, even in that one article. Wente has such a prodigious error rate that she really should have her own dedicated fact-checker, which, obviously, the Globe cannot afford.

Stead wasn’t done there, though. On Thursday, she followed that up with a remarkably fatuous proclamation that “journalism is alive and well” on the grounds that a small, well-outside-the-mainstream American web outlet — not, notably, the Globe itself — has proven that a star college football player lied to the media about having a terminally ill girlfriend. “It shows great investigative journalism can be done,” Stead babbled happily, apparently completely oblivious to the obvious lack of any such “great” work going on at her own organization.

Until Tuesday, anyhow. On Tuesday, Brad Wheeler graced the Globe with a review of the sensational proof that — wait for it! — a singer at Obama’s inauguration ceremony lip-synched her way through the American anthem, using a pre-recorded track to prevent the possibility of any embarrassing glitches.

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I don’t think there’s really any need for a detailed analysis of the following: the right-wing, free-market, anti-government “news” channel set up by Quebecor and some former Harper staffers is losing money and wants the government to mandate a special tax on cable consumers to guarantee it a revenue source. Apparently the free market isn’t so much fun after all, even for a free-market channel. Much easier just to have the government require everyone to pay for your service, right?

The depressing thing is that I would place the odds of Sun News getting basic cable status at something better than 50%. It’s tried and failed in the past to curry special favour, but I have a hunch that under its current leadership the CRTC is highly vulnerable to, shall we say, persuasion from its political masters. It’s a ridiculous application, but I don’t think it will do to laugh it off as a bad joke. They are completely serious about this. They want the government to require that all Canadian households with cable pay Sun News a monthly fee, so that Sun News can bombard them with the rantings of third-rate hacks who claim that big government is evil and the welfare bums should just suck it up and get a job.

I can’t find a copy of Sun’s latest submissions online yet, but the CRTC consultation notice associated with it notes that there are currently just 10 networks in Canada that have been given the status Sun wants: CBC News in Quebec, Radio-Canada’s RDI in English-Canada, Avis de Recherche in Quebec, the Weather Network, TVA, APTN, CPAC, AMI Audio, Accessible Media, and Canal M. Most of these are minority-language (i.e. French) non-profits, the most obvious exception being the Weather Network. Sun is asking for a special tax of $0.18 per month on all cable subscribers, which would make it the third-highest recipient of mandatory carriage subsidies after APTN and the Weather Network. As of 2013 no other news channels are mandated as part of basic service.

It’s disappointing, depressing even, that the anonymous editorial board of Pravda West — excuse me, the Globe & Mail — felt the need to leap to the defence of unethical Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. It’s an extraordinary editorial, even by the generally low standards of Pravda West editorializing. I should think that if a journalists were so morally compromised that he couldn’t muster even a half-hearted attack on a politician found guilty of violating the ethics code, he would at least subside into a sort of embarrassed silence. Not so, apparently. Pravda West will stand by the governing party, come what may!

As you may have heard by now, finance minister Jim Flaherty has been caught lobbying the CRTC on behalf of a radio station in his riding that was applying for a new Toronto-area broadcast license. Although a relatively minor incident in and of itself, this was a direct and flagrant violation both of the Ethics Code and of the Accountable Government code which Stephen Harper himself imposed upon all Cabinet ministers several years ago, which states that ministers may not intervene on behalf of their constituents before quasi-judicial bodies like the CRTC.

At the root of the ethics violation is a discrepancy between what is considered standard practice for backbench MPs (advocating for local interests) and what is a legal obligation for Cabinet ministers (never intervening on behalf of private interests, even ones in your own riding). The Globe & Mail refers to this as a dilemma. I disagree. If you find that the obligations from one of your jobs are incompatible with the requirements of another of your jobs, then at the end of the day, you may have to quit one of those jobs. That’s how real life works for the rest of us. Not, apparently, for Cabinet ministers.

Arguably most insulting part of the Globe’s coverage, though, is this statement:

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Even when it doesn’t matter.

Recently an Ottawa botany professor has suggested that the Bank of Canada erred by using a Norwegian species of maple tree as the basis for the leaf on the new $20 bill. The Norwegian maple is an invasive species in eastern Canada. It also appears it was the inspiration for the maple leaf on the $20 bill.

None of which matters, except that the Bank of Canada promptly trotted out a spokesman to issue the following denial:

“We created an image for the bank note that represents a stylized Canadian maple leaf, if you will, so that it wouldn’t represent any specific species, specifically not the Norway maple.”

Sheesh. Governments aren’t exactly truth-prone at the best of times, but the Conservative rot has evidently spread so far that even a minor, trivial, and irrelevant goof-up in the design of the new currency is a threat that must be quelled through dubious piffle.

In a dispute over the proper identification of a maple leaf, I’m afraid I have to side with the professor of botany over the government PR flack.

It’s not the inspiration for the leaf symbol that matters. It’s that on such a trivial, insignificant, and piffling matter, when it could easily have said “sorry, that’s our bad, but the Norway maple really does live in Canada now, even if it isn’t native” — no, instead, the government’s first instinct was to lie.

As you may have heard by now, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is in a bit of trouble after attempting to intervene before the CRTC on behalf of a radio station based in his riding. Such interventions violate the rules laid down for ministerial activity under the Harper government. There is no particular ambiguity on this. Once again a Conservative Cabinet minister stands in open violation of the rules with no apparent consequences whatsoever. One wonders what the rules are there for, if they do not have to be followed.

A particular irony in this case, though, is the parallel it bears to a case which occurred in 1994. On that occasion the letter-writer was Liberal minister Michel Dupuy, and the Opposition critics included, among others, a populist Reform MP by the name of Stephen Harper. In Parliament, Harper brandished a copy of the ministerial guidelines as they existed at the time and denounced Dupuy’s actions. His leader, Preston Manning, agreed, saying: “this whole affair, from the letter writing to the prime minister’s comments, is either an example of gross stupidity or unethical conduct, or both.”

Chretien responded that the whole matter had been referred to the Ethics Commissioner, a statement which was at best, shall we say, flexible with regard to the truth. Harper leaped on this as evidence that the government was “lying” to Canadians. The Parliament echoed with Opposition demands for Dupuy’s resignation.

Well, once again we have a Cabinet minister attempting to intervene with the CRTC on behalf of a broadcast station.

Just for the sake of clarity, I think the government should outline for Canadians which of the “rules for Cabinet ministers” ministers are actually required to follow. Obviously some of them are optional.

I’m going to be honest: I know virtually nothing about Mali. I could find it on a map and I could find it on Wikipedia, and that’s pretty much it. I don’t think I’m the only person in this situation. Unlike most of the media, though, I’m going to be honest about my own ignorance up front. Make of it what you will. No special knowledge or sources are present in what follows. Any reporter could garner the same facts from a quick trawl of Wikipedia, which is what I did.

All of that said, it’s a rare occasion on which I find myself endorsing a move made by the federal government these days. Fortunately it didn’t last long. Today Harper trotted out our ambassador there to deliver the following absurd piece of doublespeak which somehow, and wholly unintentionally, manages to sum up everything that is wrong with the war there:

“The coup in March 2012 undermined Mali’s progress as a democracy and provided Islamist extremists with a window that has had devastating consequences.”

Which is sort of like saying that beating your wife undermines your progress towards not beating your wife, isn’t it? More directly put, the official objective of the West in the Malian intervention appears to be that if we bomb, shell and bayonet some insurgents that are fighting a military dictatorship, said dictatorship will be so grateful for our help that it will promptly become a democracy. Most people in the West, and I count myself among this number, have virtually no idea what factions we’re supporting or opposing in Mali. Our leaders may not, either. This would seem like a prerequisite for sensible talk about military strategy. There’s even talk about fighting Al Qaeda in Mali, which is phenomenal. To my knowledge, Al Qaeda as such isn’t even in Mali.

Here’s the basic situation, as far as I can see it. Last year there was a rebellion by the ethnic Tuareg in northern Mali. The Tuareg are a little like the Kurds: a large population with no state of their own and sizeable populations in several neighbouring countries. Some of them supported the late Gaddafi regime in Libya, and were armed by it. Some of them opposed that regime and even joined the Libyan rebels. Some of them don’t want to have any part in fighting either the Libyan government or the Malian government, much less the West.

One large group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (the MNLA), was one of the leading forces behind last year’s rebellion. Most of the group are Tuareg, but it is actually ethnically diverse. The specified objective is the independence of northern Mali, as the new state of Azawad. In doing so they formed a loose alliance of common interest with Ansar Dine, an Islamist group which is alleged to have an alliance with the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, which is a terrorist organization whose official objective is the overthrow of the government of Algeria, and which changed its name to “Al Qaeda” only in 2007. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has then been alleged to have links to the actual terrorist organization Al Qaeda, although these are mainly speculative and probably more philosophical than substantive.

Ansar Dine are not the only Islamists active in northern Mali. As all this was going on, another new group formed, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA). Unlike Ansar Dine, MOJWA really is a splinter group of the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which, to repeat, is not the same organization as Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is only interested in seizing power in Algeria. MOJWA wants to establish a much larger West African Islamic state, although so far its operations have been confined to Mali and Algeria.  MOJWA joined Ansar Dine and MNLA in fighting the government of Mali.

The resulting alliance had some initial successes against government forces in the north. In response, the Malian military overthrew the democratically elected government of President Amadou Toumani Toure, claiming the government’s conduct of the war had been incompetent and had therefore caused a national crisis. Toure was evidently given a choice between a conviction for treason and exile. He chose exile, and is now living in Senegal. Since then, the military has cancelled a scheduled election and installed a nominally civilian leadership while it focuses on the war in the north.

In the meantime, the MNLA-Ansar Dine alliance broke down. Exactly why is unclear, but it might be because Ansar Dine insisted on consolidating power by instituting strict Sharia law in captured towns, while the MNLA was more interested in finishing the war of independence against Mali. The matter came to blows last summer, and since then there has essentially been a three-way conflict in northern Mali.

Enter the Western intervention. We now have a three-way conflict in which we are attempting to decide which side to bomb. The Government of Mali wants to secure its northern territory, at the expense of democracy. The MNLA is willing to help us wipe out the Islamists, but in exchange demands autonomy for the north. The Islamists want to eliminate the Malian dictatorship too, but only on the condition that it be replaced with an Islamic state based on Shariah law. At least some of the MNLA are probably also Islamists. Many leaders on all three sides are probably corrupt, opportunistic warlords.

Now, which side you want to take in this conflict, and how, is up to you. There are arguments both for and against intervention. But blundering into the middle of it with a vague idea that we have to “beat Al Qaeda before Mali turns into Afghanistan” seems at the very least unwise.

Canada’s most inept international aid minister ever, Julian Fantino, published two extraordinary partisan screeds on his agency’s website recently which have caused a bit of a kerfuffle in the news. As a result, they’ve been pulled from the government’s website. Nice try, Mr. Fantino. Documents don’t die easily on the Web. For the sake of my readers and your constituents, I’ve re-published the letters below.

Just so we’re clear, using taxpayer-funded government department websites for partisan purposes isn’t just unethical, it’s against the rules. It’s an explicitly prohibited misuse of taxpayer resources. This is an official policy statement from a government department; as a result, it is not permitted to include partisan affairs of any sort.

The current news from the government is that the letters were “posted in error.” It’s hard to imagine how that could be the case. As you can see by comparing the texts below with versions that were published in more appropriate non-taxpayer-financed forums, namely the National Post and the Huffington Post, someone specifically went in and edited the versions that went up on CIDA’s website to add extra links. Someone also formatted the text, sent it to the webmaster’s office, and authorized its publication.

Things like this don’t happen by “accident” in government. There’s probably even a paper trail, like there was for Jason Kenney’s fake citizenship ceremony last year. Even at Sixth Estate, sometimes I regret things I publish, but I certainly don’t just “accidentally” write, edit, and publish entire columns.

Here’s the first one, written to the NDP. Notice that in the final paragraph Julian Fantino singles out Canada’s aid program in Haiti as a particularly successful one, worthy of attention. A few days ago, Fantino announced that he was not satisfied with the Haiti program and that Canada should eliminate its aid to that country. How you want to square these remarks is up to you.

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