Johann Hari and the misleading quotes

Well Johann Hari is in a bit of trouble at the moment and I can't be the only one who's a little confused as to why it's created as much fuss as it has. From what I can tell and from what some journalists have been quick to say is that Hari has lifted quotes from other peoples interviews with his own subjects and in some cases books. The excuse Hari has given is as follows in a quote he didn't say to me, but wrote on his blog.

"When I’ve interviewed a writer, it’s quite common that they will express an idea or sentiment to me that they have expressed before in their writing – and, almost always, they’ve said it more clearly in writing than in speech. (I know I write much more clearly than I speak – whenever I read a transcript of what I’ve said, or it always seems less clear and more clotted. I think we’ve all had that sensation in one form or another).

"So occasionally, at the point in the interview where the subject has expressed an idea, I’ve quoted the idea as they expressed it in writing, rather than how they expressed it in speech."

All seems fair enough I guess, it's not straightforward plagiarism at least but the main gripe many have with Hari's excuse is that whilst this would be bad form for Hari but not unforgivable, he has on some occasions passed off a quote that his subject said in another interview as something said to him at the time. With a delicious irony I am now going to copy and paste one such example straight from the Telegraph Blog of Toby Young (which can be viewed here).

'Take this passage from his interview with [Tony] Negri:

Negri recently described the Soviet Union as “a society criss-crossed with extremely strong instances of creativity and freedom”, which is more than he has ever said for any democracy. He even says that the Soviet Union fell because it was too successful. I point this out, and he replies: “Now you are talking about memory. Who controls memory? Faced with the weight of memory, one must be unreasonable! Reason amounts to eternal Cartesianism. The most beautiful thing is to think ‘against’, to think ‘new’. Memory prevents revolt, rejection, invention, revolution.”

Compare this to what Negri said to [Anne] Dufourmentelle:

Who controls memory? Faced with the weight of memory, one must be unreasonable! Reason amounts to eternal Cartesianism.

It’s the use of a phrase like “I point this out, and he replies” that marks Hari out as a special case. That appears to stray beyond the merely misleading.'

If you know your history it's not the first time Hari has been accused of such misdeeds. You need only to go back to an article in a 2003 issue of Private Eye to find such accusations (archived here).

On Twitter the story exploded with millions of people taking up the hashtag #interviewsbyhari with the most humorous being an example I found on the Al Jazeera blog (read it here) where Twitter user @mattwithers tweeted about an imagined encounter between Hari and ex-England international, John Barnes, it reads "Barnes articulated his footballing philosophy. 'You've got to hold and give,' he said, 'but do it at the right time'. #interviewsbyhari." The line of course coming from the infamous rap in England's 1990 World Cup song World In Motion by New Order (if you don't know it, give it a listen here).

Give the man his due though, he has responded in a thoroughly honest way and it would be wrong of me not to include his views, readable on his blog here.

Articles are being written and updated on the subject almost continuously at the moment so if you want the latest on the subject your best bet is to follow any hashtags on Twitter for articles from a whole range of different perspectives and keep an eye on Hari's blog.

Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.