Christie Blatchford: She Never Sang For Her Supper
Some people write their own epitaph. So it was appropriate that, when news of Christie Blatchford's death came across social media on Wednesday, her churlish critics couldn’t help themselves. They chose her death to grind an ax about how she’d resisted the ideological show trials promoted by the Left.
In the Jian Ghomeshi case in 2016 Blatch had written that the witnesses had conspired to cook evidence of sexual assault against the disgraced CBC Radio host. She’d written of the paper-thin prosecution case mounted by the Crown to satisfy third-generation feminists eager for a lynching. She’d put truth ahead of the approval from a mob.
Whatever Ghomeshi was guilty of— and there was significant evidence of his bad behaviour— was flushed away when his lawyer Marie Heinen pointed out that witnessers had lied and falsified evidence of their sexual assaults. When it came time for the verdict the facts spoke louder than the progressive narratives. Ghomeshi walked.
Naturally the architects of this meltdown couldn’t blame themselves for trying to bum-rush justice. Their hearts were pure. So they blamed Blatchford and Heinen for Ghomeshi’s acquittal— not themselves. “How could a woman do this to other women?” they howled. Their puerile complaints from the day of Ghomeshi’s acquittal were revived in the hours after the death of the journalist who’d defined the story in her reporting.
Some of the whiners were noted writers and activists. Others simply trolls squeezing one out for the hosannas of their pals. Said one, “I’m not sorry that my first thought upon reading about Blatchford's death was "oh, thank god." I *am* sorry that I felt like I couldn't voice that opinion until someone else had first.”
“How white is this industry? (Pretty white considering how long she survived at the Globe and Mail.)” said another. These were the same ones who forcibly prevented Blatchford from speaking at Western recently. Her refusal to knuckle under to these polemicists infuriated them. She didn’t care.
The baying hounds of the new propriety would never understand that, in the kind of journalism practiced by Blatchford and a precious few others, the goal is the truth, not a story to fit a political agenda.
I won’t claim to being her best friend. There are already plenty of others trying to make her death from cancer about themselves. I saw her in action, read her copy and envied the purity of the fire driving both popular and unpopular causes.
When I began in journalism there were many who thought like Blatchford. She wasn’t the story. Neither were they. They knew that you never get pushback on a mediocre story. So when the hacks mount their woke protests you know you’re over the target.
The kind of verbal garbage hurled at her and similar reporters only served as a medal for a job well done. When she pointed out the discrepancies in the Crown case against Ghomeshi or the blatant Liberal Party corruption behind the persecution of vice admiral Mark Norman the resultant complaints were like winning an Oscar.
Being a woman who matched— and surpassed— the guys was not a political cause for Christie, either. She was proud of being a woman in a man’s business when she wrote sports. But that didn’t define her. She loved beating people of all races and genders to a story. That was old school, too. Of course, it was never enough to the crowd that commands unyielding obedience to the grievance doctrine.
Sadly she may have taken that prototype with her. Today’s model journalists skulk away down the hallways of the B.C. Legislature when the premier turtles in the face of a lawless mob outside. They write every story with one ear cocked to the zeitgeist of whoever might criticize them, alert to avoid the cascade of hate that follows any story not conforming to the whims of the mob.
Judging by the embarrassment of evil heaped on her reputation Wednesday these press Quislings have plenty of company in what’s left of the business of journalism. They have the support of their bosses, of course. These are the same people who thought writers like Christie were disposable, one on every corner. It was that conceit that led to the destruction of real journalism. They never valued that the true power behind stories was precious and unique, not churned out by a journalism faculty.
For one more day at least we got to remember that glorious truth. And for that I thank Blatch. She never sang for her supper.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster. He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also a best-selling author whose new book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports And Why The Free Market Could Save Them is now available on brucedowbigginbooks.ca.