Johann Hari: Oops!

"As an amusing aside from our usual ruthless criticism of everything existing, here’s a little insight into the workings of the mainstream media. We’ve long found this piece of super-liberal journalism rather lulzy- it’s an attempted take-down of Italian communist and every ultra-leftist’s favourite “psychopath”, Toni Negri, by Orwell Prize winner Johann Hari from The Independent in 2004. Hari interviews him at the ICA in London, and carefully tries to balance his horror at the Gulag with his horror of Negri’s flagrant disregard of a no smoking sign, heavily implying throughout that Negri is a murderous terror-monger. It was a poor interview, failing to even attempt to engage with his writings on the grounds that it’s too impenetrable, although he paints a vivid picture of Negri as a personally rude and rather objectionable man.
"A great introduction to this formidable “old terrorist” is the book “Negri on Negri”, published in 2003, where Anne Dufourmentelle produces an in-depth interview, based around a lexicon of his thought, and forming a much more cohesive and thorough look at the man’s ideas and life. But reading through it, a strange sense of deja-vu settled over us. Where have we read that before? This week, it was bought to our attention.
"Hari’s “interview”, vivid and lifelike and seemingly full of conflict between the two great minds, seems to contain whole passages lifted from Dufourmentelle’s much lengthier interview. Compare and contrast… [Go here]

Deterritorial Support Grouppppp.

Hari fesses up to making stuff up here.
Cue shitstorm.
Today Johann Hari blogs;
"Yesterday on Twitter I was accused of plagiarism. This accusation is totally false – but I have reflected seriously on this and do have something to apologize for.
"When you interview a writer – especially but not only when English isn’t their first language – they will sometimes make a point that sounds clear when you hear it, but turns out to be incomprehensible or confusing on the page. In those instances, I have sometimes substituted a passage they have written or said more clearly elsewhere on the same subject for what they said to me so the reader understands their point as clearly as possible..."

The non-apology is as bad as the original accusation.
For more on Mr Hari's dodgy journalism see Fagburn - passim, but here and here
Mr Hari is perhaps best known for telling lies about Iraq in the run-up to war.
Have a look at various critiques of Hari on MediaLens, as a frequent servant of power.
Fagburn's favourite article by Johannna is when he - overnight! - became an expert on late-19th century Anarchists here.
I wonder where she got all that from?
Silly moo.

Update: Andd he's now been accused of ripping stuff off from Attitude, too.