Another Wente controversy
A discussion is raging on Facebook about Margaret Wente’s latest Globe and Mail column, “What Dick Pound said was really dumb – and also true.” …
A discussion is raging on Facebook about Margaret Wente’s latest Globe and Mail column, “What Dick Pound said was really dumb – and also true.”
The column concerns Dick Pound’s “un pays de sauvages” remark and was
liberally sprinkled with Wente’s musings about European vs
American-aboriginal civilization. As of mid-day Oct. 29, 1,892 members
had joined the Facebook group “Fire Margaret Wente (and Dick Pound).”
Among hundreds of posts on the discussion board someone posted a letter
from Globe deputy editor Sylvia Stead responding to the phone calls and
letters demanding Wente’s firing.
UPDATE:
At midday Oct. 30 group membership reached 2,172. In response to what
he calls a “smear” by the Facebook group Jonathan Kay of the National
Post set up another group called, “Stand up for Margaret Wente,”
which had 110 members. It includes defence of Wente’s column as well as
this comment by Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star, who said while
she “hated” the column, “I believe all columnists have the right to be
awful and wrong. So I am NOT standing up for the column or what she
wrote. I am standing up for freedom of expression.” A woman named only
“Alex” wrote, “But while I agree with Antonia that she has freedom of
speech, that does not mean she has the right to be published in
millions of copies of the Globe every day.”
(My previous Townhall post on Wente and accountability is here.)
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