…Earlier in the thread you cited a “journalist” who, on three different occasions, had his publishers retract his stories and made payouts in order to avoid defamation proceedings. You cited the Spectator, an outlet that finds it somewhat impossible to write an article about trans people that doesn’t manage in some way to be utterly and completely transphobic.
Almost everything published about Arday is either an “opinion” piece or a “puff piece” and doesn’t contain much evidence at all. There is no reason to single out the Middle East Eye article unless you are prepared to call them all out.
Because the Spectator publishes anti-trans people, it publishes fabulists. If we stop taking the tabloids who employ the most HORRIBLE people seriously, then this thread wouldn’t even exist.
This claim conflates a few things in an unhelpful way.
Anti-trans writing comes from a few different places, from ignorance to malice. Just because a writer is writing things that are not true, that doesn’t make them a fabulist. (It doesn’t make them NOT a fabulist, either; it’s insufficient evidence. The why matters.)
Arday had friends and family and degrees and a job and an uncommon name. A real journalist should have been able to research his claims pretty easily. There isn’t really much need to establish the character of these publications to show that way too many articles were published with insufficient research, and this is part of what led to a man’s death.
…it comes from bigotry. If you are using your platform to spread anti-trans hate, that doesn’t come from ignorance that comes from hate.
Boris Johnson was literally the editor of the Spectator at one time and is still a contributor and regularly published by them to this day. What am I conflating here? If we can’t trust the Middle East Eye then we can’t trust the Spectator.
And yet: here we are.
The reason why many of these claims are hard to track down is because Arday isn’t really that important. He’s had a few local articles written about him but if you google my real name you would find a lot about me as well. That doesn’t make me any less of a nobody.
And if you wanted to find out what if I ran a bunch of marathons twenty years ago you would probably find that hard to do as well. Because the internet was a different place back then. Because not everything gets memorialized the way we would like. Because ultimately it really doesn’t matter.
All I’m pointing out is that if we can’t trust the Middle East Eye because the article wasn’t “serious” enough and because a contributor once said something outrageous and offensive, then by that standard we can’t trust ANY of the publications that have been cited in this thread.
Speaking of photos and articles, the BBC had a lot of them in the years leading up to the current brouhaha, which seem to have uncritically promoted the Arday legend.
One could call that the “pre-hounding” era.
A search of the BBC website, as far as that can go given paywalls, does confirm a bunch of pre-scandal coverage, including this acceptance of the nonverbal autism claim.
A regrettably common tactic employed by some on the Dope is to attack sources without any real attempt to debunk what they report. A much more honest approach is to question the facts of a story, then cast doubt on the reputation of the source.
Needless to say (though it has to again be said), articles in the New York Times, the Guardian and other major media (including reporting cited earlier) cannot simply be dismissed as tabloid trash written by “the most HORRIBLE people”.
…are you talking about yourself here? Because this:
It isn’t a real attempt to debunk what was reported. You do everything that you implied (by the fact that you quoted me) I did.
The claim that Arday lied about the marathons is largely an argument from incredulity. There isn’t a body of evidence that suggests it was all a lie. Its just that people don’t believe him.
What the Middle East Eye article does is collect from a variety of sources enough evidence to suggest that at the very least Arday did participate in a number of marathons at the time in question. They cite newspaper reporting before he started and newspaper reporting after he finished. They found the charities he was raising money for. There was reporting on his first marathon. Shooting Star’s director of fundraising and marketing ran with Ardey on his 24th marathon. They quote a friend who was with him on his last marathon.
We are talking about a random charity event that happened 16 years ago. I’m struggling to remember what I was doing in 2010. I couldn’t remember if I ran a marathon with some random person or not. But the Middle East Eye presents a plausible amount of evidence that he did start a 30-marathon-in-35-days charity event, that people saw him running on different days of the event, that he did indeed help raise money for the charities involved.
Is it possible that instead of 30 marathons he only ran 28? Sure. Is it possible he only ran 2? Perhaps. Did he run all 30? I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that he didn’t.
Does it actually matter? Not when it comes to allegations of plagiarism. Which arguably is the only real matter of public interest here in this story.
But I think at this stage it’s undeniable that he actually ran at the very least some marathons. I think that’s actually valuable reporting.
So all I did was exactly the same thing as you did. Except I actually did do a deep dive into the article from the Spectator you cited. I showed very specific things that the author of the article you cited did, for example, deliberately omitted the context of the quote and the disclaimer. And unlike you, I originally attacked the author of the article’s credentials, not some random freelancer who apparently no longer works for the Middle East Eye.
The only reason I brought up Boris Johnson at all was because you randomly brought up Shatha Hammad, and as a side note, the article that you cited treated the propaganda site “Honest Reporting” as a reputable outlet which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to do. But again: Johnson used to be the Spectator editor and is still a current contributor. So thats much more relevant than the random freelancer you cited.
This is an appeal to authority. But I can absolutely assure you that the most HORRIBLE people also sometimes write for the Guardian and the New York Times as well.
Like it or not, confabulation is a significant part of the story. It’s apparently a key to what got him the Cambridge appointment over other candidates (including two described as women of color). His account of going from nonverbal at age 11 and illiterate at age 18 to dramatically achieving a PhD was a compelling story, but one which should have raised eyebrows. Cambridge and media like the BBC bought into it credulously, without doing fact-checking dictated by common sense. It was like “Catch Me If You Can”, academic version.
Actually, I did raise logical questions about the Middle East Eye* “claims found to be true” story (such its feeble documentation which included references to puff pieces in other publications that evidently didn’t bother to do their own diligence), before making a snarky allusion to the quality of reporters they hire. You on the other hand leaped right to denigrating the Spectator and its reporter without bothering to try to debunk the evidence they presented.
Uh-huh. The argument that everyone who has questioned Arday is HORRIBLE and thus it’s a pack of lies is obviously deeply embedded in your belief system. No use in trying to counter it further.
*It’s odd that Middle East Eye, a media outfit whose scope of coverage is, you know, the MIddle East, decided to jump into this story. Was Arday an ardent defender of the Palestinian cause (haven’t heard that)? Or was the MEE story a gesture of solidarity with a newly minted leftist cause?
…no it isn’t part of the story. Not unless you buy into the nonsensical, utterly ridiculous “DEI hire” narrative. You don’t believe that, do you? Because there is even less evidence of that than there is for the plagiarism allegations.
I’m not interested in debating these alleged “confabulations” you’ve listed because every time I’ve looked things up what he actually said or did doesn’t match up to what was alleged. So if you have any cites for any of this then provide them. But I’m done with having to do all the legwork of looking this stuff up.
This was less “asking logical questions” and more in the territory of “just asking questions.” There wasn’t anything wrong with the reporting here. They found one news report that said he started the marathons and another news report when he finished. They talked to two people that ran with him at different races. He actually raised money for the charity. Considering the context, this is all worthwhile reporting. I don’t understand your complaint. It shows this wasn’t invented out of thin air and that he actually ran in at least two marathons.
So are you the only person allowed to make a “snarky allusion to the quality of reporters they hire”? Why am I different?
As I stated in the last post this isn’t correct. I did bother to “debunk” the evidence they presented. I showed that the quote they used was out of context and purposefully omitted the disclaimer, which fundamentally changed the meaning of what they quoted. That’s dishonest, but completely in character for the author of the article.
That wasn’t actually my argument.
It’s odd that we are investing this much time criticizing what is really just an example of straight reporting. Sometimes when the so-called mainstream media fail, other media feels the need to step up. The Guardian for example had every opportunity to do the very same thing the Middle East Eye did here; instead, they focused on the hairline fracture quote. They found time to interview butchers but didn’t find time to interview anyone from the charity he raised money for. That suggests they weren’t looking for the truth: they were looking for dirt.
Wait, what? It’s a HUGE part of the story. It’s THE story, along with how it revealed institutional racism at the highest levels of academia.
You’re absolutely right that journalists should, therefore, do serious research into what was and wasn’t true. He claimed to be nonverbal as a child; that seems to be false. He claimed exceptional athleticism; that seems to be true. Lazy credulousness makes everything true; lazy reporting makes everything a lie. But the truth matters, and it’s in between.
An academic got accused of plagiarism. There is arguably news value in that. But no, we don’t need to know if he lied about having epilepsy or not. That isn’t news. Especially now that he’s dead.
I don’t think the story is just that “an academic got accused of plagiarism.” An academic who misrepresented his background / qualifications to Cambridge, who in turn didn’t catch it because of their own and their institution’s racism, all got found out following an accusation of plagiarism. That’s the story to me, anyway.
The fact that institutions are still flattening the narratives about people of color is news, even if it’s not new.
The plagiarism is just what led to the information about the background, which was then sensationalized to a degree that led to a man’s death, and that’s a separate story.
An accusation made on a substack by a professional racist and troll that still hasn’t been substantiated yet by the university and now he’s dead doesn’t even matter.
I’m still struggling to understand what the Arday defenders want, or are arguing for. Do they want the media coverage to be, “A professor plagiarized and lied, but it’s no big deal, let’s move on?”
Do they want, “A black man is accused of lying and plagiarizing, but we’ll refuse to believe the accusations because he’s a disadvantaged minority?”
Wait, are you saying that he was truthful in representing his background / qualifications? Because at this point, that’s an extraordinary claim that needs evidence. You have shown, I think, that the press exaggerated the misrepresentation, but not that the whole thing was fabricated by the evil press for… reasons, that you should establish.
As for your second point, it seems to be ad hominem. That an execrable person levelled an accusation means the accusation should be dismissed? I don’t think it should be tried in the court of public opinion (he said, hypocritically), but yes, Cambridge professors should be able to easily demonstrate that they have not plagiarized nor cited incorrectly. I’ve only ever know two such individuals, but it would have been trivial for them to answer such accusations from anyone, no matter how racist or trollish.
This exactly. You have an academic who lied about his past and his accomplishments, then hid behind accusations of racism when caught, then refused to apologize when he suffered the rightful repercussions of his actions, then cowardly took his own life when faced with dealing with the fallout. This reprehensible deflection is now being carried on by his supporters, who decry the entire process as some kind of witch hunt spurred on by racists and righteous arguments of whataboutism. Absolutely no personal accountability on any level here.
This part seems less certain to me as new facts come to light.
That he plagierized seems pretty credible, though he’s never been formally investigated. That he invented lots of stories about his past, less so. It’s not unheard of for nonverbal autistics to start speaking later in life. I know of at least one autistic activist who didn’t become verbal until age 14. Epilepsy? Shit, even I was diagnosed with epilepsy, for a grand total of three seizures over an 8-year period. He could have been diagnosed after one seizure. Raised money for charity? That’s not far-fetched at all. The one that I thought most unrealistic was the marathon thing, but turns out he’s run at least a couple so it’s not out of the question.
If the story had been “well-regarded professor suspected of plagiarism,” well, that would have been a scandal for Cambridge but I’m not sure it would have been that compelling of news coverage. It only got attention because of how the issue was framed - this unqualified Black man lied about everything he ever achieved and the idiots at Cambridge believed him!
I’m not an Arday defender. I think this is an interesting sociological case which is sad when you think about it. I think it’s wrong to plagiarize. I also think it’s wrong to make shit up to pursue a racist agenda. Both can be true.
Both are clearly written in such a way to make those you disagree with sound ridiculous. It is simply two strawmen layered with a false dichotomy.
You also throw in an implicit presupposition by framing those who think the press acted poorly as “Arday supporters.”
It’s all about framing a nuanced discussion as black-and-white. It’s, to be honest, typical conservative thinking.
We have a racist guy who went after the guy for racist reasons, who even promoted racism in his complaints (e.g. assuming he’s a “DEI hire”). Then we have newspapers who repeated what the racist guy said without doing their own investigation, many not even tempering the language. If a source is clearly biased, you don’t take their word for it. You do your own research.
We now have evidence that at least some of the claims were false, and that actual investigation of the claims would have discovered that. We have evidence that other plagiarism cases were not treated with the same sort of media frenzy.
It’s not at all hard to figure out what they should have done. Do their own investigations. Report only what they are reasonably certain is true. Refuse to in any way platform the racist. Avoid any sort of narrative that “Cambridge didn’t vet this guy because he’s black.”
Do I know the guy would still be alive if they handled it better? No. But I can say that they didn’t handle things the way they should have. I can say that their lack of care may have contributed.
In no way does this make me a Jason Arday supporter. Nuance is a thing.
