Hari Unmasked
The Guido Fawkes’ blog stamps “Fraud” on Johann Hari for fabricating large parts of interviews
Those “interviews” conducted by Johann Hari, journalist at the UK’s Independent, continue to unravel. CAMERA has had long-running concerns about grossly biased articles by Hari about Israel and about the indifference of the newspaper to errors and distortions in coverage.
As the Guido Fawkes blog observes
Guido is fairly sure Johann Hari has breached Article 1 of the PCC Code. He has admitted misleading his readers. Despite the desperate attempts by his editor, Simon Kelner, to spin that his favorite son is being attacked for political reasons, the Hari-wagon is coming off of the tracks.
He adds:
The Telegraph are coming down on him heavily. Firstly there is Brenden O’Neil rightly pointing out that “the notion that one can reach “the truth” by manipulating reality should be anathema to anyone who calls himself a journalist.”
In The New Statesman, Guy Walters cautions against accepting Hari’s self-exculpatory apology for his inventions, citing outright plagiarizing of an interview with Hugo Chavez:
It now appears that Mr Hari has made quite a habit of pinching quotes given to other interviewers, and claiming that they were given to him.
It also appears that that Independent editor Simon Kelner is eager to forgive:
“What Johann did was wrong. He accepts and we believe it,” Kelner told The Media Show presenter Steve Hewlett.
“It was born from an honest ambition to give the clearest possible representation of what the interviewee was saying. In the grand scheme of things it is not a great scandal – it’s a naive error which we recognise.”
Kelner suggested Hari would not face any disciplinary action – other than being “spoken to at great length” – and said the young columnist had suffered punishment enough with the vilification he’s had on Twitter
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