From the archives: Is that you, Johann Hari?

HJ

I guess there wasn't a Best Before , or a Use By date on that 'dairy' from July...

Ed P

The Independent are allegedly not going to dispose of Hari's talents, so alleviating the usual boredom of their deathly prose.

Nigel Molestrangler

Wikipedia : 'In a statement, the editor of The Independent, Chris Blackhurst said: "We always pride ourselves on pursuing the highest ethical standards at The Independent. Regrettably, Johann fell below those in some aspects of his journalism. He has acknowledged his mistakes and made a full apology. There is no doubting his talent as a columnist and we are hoping to see him back in The Independent in the not too distant future.”'

Jeez ...

Nicholas Hallam

The Independent shames itself by declining to sack Hari. Toby Young gives his apology a thorough Fisking - http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100105124/fisking-johann-haris-apology-in-todays-independent/

toco

The fact that The Independent has not sacked Hari speaks volumes about a biased journal no longer even pretending to be a broadsheet.Can't see how it can even think of claiming the moral high ground ever again.

Colin

No need to sue, just set the Met on him. Apparently being a vile Internet troll can get you banged up these days...

Andy H

Poor deluded fool.
It is not really that surprising though, as he is a socialist left winger.
They are pretty much poor deluded fools anyhow......

Sally Chatterjee

A disgrace but I can't help feel he needs help, there might be profound psychological flaws.

graham

I watched the new editor of the Indy on Newsnight last night, trying to explain his reasons for keeping Hari & rewarding him by sending him on a journalist's course to Columbia. It was such a limp rationale...pathetic! The Indy will suffer because thousands of readers like me will never be able to trust the Indy again. I'll never buy it again.

Cjamesk

And yet the NOTW was closed down over hacking allegations, many losing jobs with grand fan fairing and cheer leading from the Beeb and Guardian which is ok on the Left, with Toynbee et al all riding in to support him closing ranks as it's one of their own.

Hasn't his David Rose pseudo-name also posted paedophilic writings too?

Richard of Moscow

Since I am quick to rant at you at times, I would like to be one of the first to thank you for standing up to that odious little liar. Bravo, Mr. Cohen!

Andy Carpark

My, but some people find themselves fascinating.

And what was your blog post of 23 July supposed to be - a shining example of compliance with Queensbury Rules?

Axstane

Mostly Socialists only go completely mad after middle age. Their acquired mania comers from too much exposure to reality which is irreconcilable with their ingrained beliefs.

Johann Hari will be immune to that mental decay syndrome since he has already taken refuge in a make-believe world at a young age. Either that or he is a turd. Or both.

RichieP

Nick Cohen's dairy eh?

Austin Barry

Why was Hari awarded the Orwell Prize in the first place?

Hari is so precisely a creature of the pansy, sandal-wearing left that Orwell detested, that surely the only place for him now is the BBC where those qualities are highly prized and, indeed, almost a sine qua non of employment.

Will Rees

Going by http://www.slate.com/id/2175579/ it appears "the fearsome honour code by which hacks abide insists that no journalist can sue for libel — if you give it, you must take it." is another thing Mr Hari will have to learn on his journalism course.

What is puzzling now, at least for me is why high profile journos and editors have risked taint by association in defending someone who comes across as a thoroughly reprehesable individual.

sinosimon

the left worked itself into a frenzy over NOTW printing stories that were true(if obtained in sometimes despicable fashion).
the left works itself into a frenzy protecting a known liar, fantasist and smearer......

it must be false consciousness that is blinding us to the moral correctness of these viewpoints...mustn't it?

Simon Stephenson.

toco : 11.25am

"The fact that The Independent has not sacked Hari speaks volumes about a biased journal no longer even pretending to be a broadsheet.Can't see how it can even think of claiming the moral high ground ever again."

I think this is a bit harsh. If the Independent thinks that Hari is capable of reforming his behaviour to that of a good-faith journalist, and that as such he'll make a worthwhile contribution to the newspaper, then it's entitled to keep him on. What it must do, however, is to understand that neither Hari's apology, nor any commitments to good faith he has given the newspaper, amount to anything if his attitude towards the promulgation of his tunnel-visioned worldview has not changed. His past behaviour has shown that he's capable of seeing no honour in being truthful, so just to assume he's being truthful now is ridiculous.

But, if such a combination is possible, a dyed-in-the-wool leftist with a sense of honour can, I submit, be a valuable contributor to political debate.

Austin Barry

Simon Stephenson @1.26 pm

".. a dyed-in-the-wool leftist with a sense of honour can, I submit, be a valuable contributor to political debate."

What as the moron in oxy?

David Rose

You guys should all get of Johann Hari's back. I've heard he's a really decent bloke who does loads for charity.
OK, he may be a bit wordy, sometimes comes across as arrogant and there can be no doubt that he's cumbersomely well-hung, but in truth he's just like the rest of us. Only much more talented. I predict a knighthood.

Neil

It sounds as if Hari has a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder. People who turn nasty when crossed or found often are of that type. No amount of hugging will ever change these people.

In2minds

Don't forget that what Johann Hari did on Wikipedia is pretty standard stuff. All disciples of climate change do just the same.

J H Holloway

When I read Hari's demolition of Hammersmith's Tory council, just before the last election, I was extremely suspicious of all the pitch-perfect quotes he had obtained from pitch-perfect 'victims' of Tory policy.

For example 'A young woman – let's called her Jane Phillips, because she wants to remain anonymous'. Really, Mr Hari? Are you sure she existed?

This piece pretty much did for Shaun Bailey's chances to be the local MP. I personally believe it to be 50 percent fabrication. Read it, and see what you think.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-welcome-to-cameron-land-1962318.html

martin sewell

I understand that The Independent is refusing to publish the report of Andreus Whittam-Smith into exactly what Hari was up to. If it does so it will lose all credibility when in future times it calls for "Freedom of Information" or a "Full public enquiry" into some other scandal. The NOTW hacking was dreadful but at least it was about revealing facts whereas this man seems to have been about trying to destroy others with lies.

Dimoto

Not sure the whole of the "left" can be tarred with loving smear/lying tactics.

But, without a shadow of a doubt, the power crazy, nihilistic, amoral Blair-Brown British left, who have captured the Labour party, certainly have/do use this as a prime strategy.

Is there really any difference between Hari and (say) McGuire ?

The Indy has moved so far away from it's original aims and beliefs that it should rebrand itself: Blair-Brown Times maybe.

Feel sorry for their very good foreign section and Hamish McCrea - always worth reading.

Baron

Austin Barry @ 1.01&1.36, sir, beautiful, and so true, too.

Simon Stephenson.

Austin Barry : 1.36pm

I did qualify this with "if such a combination is possible". I'm agnostic about this. On the one hand I don't see why it's impossible for someone to hold leftist opinions, but to believe it to be improper for these to be argued perfidiously, but, on the other hand, if such people exist, we'd surely hear left-on-left criticism of behaviour beyond the quietest of whispers that we get at the moment. How can it be that so much of the Left is silent about Hari's abuse of reasoned discussion?

Maybe the answer is that Leftism requires an ability to self-delude that is derived from the same psychological condition that legitimises the use of perfidy in argument.

Archibald

Austin Barry 1.01pm
I think I see what happened. The judges, all with busy lives to lead, only read the cover of the Penguin edition of Orwell's 'Why I Write' which reads:

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

They obviously wrongly assumed Orwell thought this was a good thing, and having made that assumption it follows that who else but Hari, with his unique approach to research and truth, could win?

Peter

I was fascinated to read that Hari had interviewed an anymous Jane Philips in Hammersmith. Why?

Because during the 1960s there was a Labour politician in Hammersmith, who represented the borough on the old GLC, called Jane Philips.

What a coincidence

Noa.

He's a totally exposed and shamed self admitted habitual liar and fabricator.

Would any sane private business now trust him enough to employ him in anything other than the most menial capacity?

So it's just as well that the Independent has undertaken to keep him employed and so not a charge to the pubic purse.

HampsteadOwl

Several Hari apologists, when this story first broke, argued that his problem was that he got his newspaper column too easily and hadn't been to journalism school. And now apparently that is where he is headed.

What better example of the moral emptiness of the left. As if you need to go to a college of journalism to learn the difference between truth and lies, right from wrong or that it is wicked to smear and libel people you don't happen to like or who have upset you in some way.

The man doesn't need "training". He needs a doctor. Or a priest perhaps.

And yes, as somebody notes above, there is buried away in this story an alleged link between Hari, aka David Rose, and pornography. Might not be true, but we aren't being told the truth about it one way or another.

Perhaps this will, in due course, be the subject of another of Hari's oh-so-elegiacally written personal apologies. And another of the Independent's tortured explanations as to why they aren't going to sack him ever.

If he had any decency, he would resign.

MM

As I had always thought, and now he has proved me right, a very nasty little man with a big personality disorder.

MikeF

People like Hari believe that they possess an intrinsic moral and intellectual superiority to anyone who thinks differently than them. Indeed they believe it is impossible for anyone to think differently from them except for venal or interested motives. An integral part of this state-of-mind is their belief that they possess some unique insight into and understanding of reality. Hence when facts - actual events - contradict their beliefs then they regard those events as anomalous, mere circumstance that can not merely be disregarded but reinvented as they deem appropriate.

Bob Low

I have followed the Johann Hari story with some interest over the last few months, as it formed a fascinating side-show to the Murdoch Hacking scandal-if for no other reason, than for the light which it shed on the morality of many of those gloating over Murdoch's public humliation. It is very difficult to imagine how Hari can return the sort of writing-you couldn't really call it journalism-that he specialised in before he was caught. Who would consent to being interviewed by someone with a proven-admitted, even- track record for dis-honesty and distortion of the facts-and who may not even print what you told him, anyway? How could Hari possibly be taken seriously if he was, for example, trying to hold an allegedly dis-honest public figure to account in an interview-surely the logical response of any interviewee in that situation , would be to retort ''Isn't that a bit rich coming from you''? The fact that Hari has not been sacked is genuinely shocking, but tends to prove Nick Cohen correct, in his assertion in another article he wrote a couple of months ago that those managing the media in this country have the morality of pimps.