Mark Steyn
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Mark Steyn is a Canadian journalist, columnist, and film and theatre critic.
Career
The facts of Steyn's life are difficult to check. He has not published biographical details, such as his date of birth or employment historySteyn was born in Toronto, and dropped out of school at 16 to work as a disc jockey. He is of Jewish descent on his father's side and Belgian Catholic on his mother's side; he was baptized a Catholic, confirmed an Anglican, and currently attends a small rural American Baptist Church. [link] He spent many of his formative years in the United Kingdom, and his first break in British journalism came when he was hired as the musical theatre critic for the then newly-established The Independent in London in 1986. In 1992, The Spectator hired him as their film critic. After a number of years writing predominantly about the arts, his portfolio widened to embrace political comment, the role for which he is best known today. He wrote for the Wall Street Journal for a time.
He is unusual amongst political writers because of his sideways move from arts criticism into punditry, as well as his lack of college education. This move may have been precipitated by a conflict between Steyn and Hollinger over his status in the mid-90s: Steyn's movie reviews temporarily disappeared from their pages. When he returned, Steyn was made a senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc. Publications, senior North American columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group, and North American editor for The Spectator. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, also writing for the Jerusalem Post (also owned by Hollinger), the National Review in the United States, and formerly for the Irish Times in Ireland. His writing is not exclusively political: he writes theatre reviews for the New Criterion, cinema reviews for the Spectator and obituaries for the Atlantic Monthly.
As of 2006, Steyn no longer writes for the Spectator or the Daily Telegraph. In response to a letter on his website on 2nd March 2006, Steyn explained the reason for his departure. "The Telegraph Group and I have been unable to reach agreement on a new contract, and what’s more they seem to be having great difficulty ponying up the final payment on my last contract. A sad end to a long and for the most part happy relationship." Neither publication is now a Hollinger property.
He is a self-identified conservative, who writes on foreign policy issues. He is a close ally of fellow Canadian Conrad Black, and has written for many of Black's newspapers. In the 1990s, having moved on from the Independent, he returned to his native Canada. He wrote for the Canadian newspaper National Post, but his position became uncertain after the purchase of the newspaper by Canwest Global; he ceased to write there in May 2003. And in Canada, he now writes weekly for Maclean's and twice monthly for the Western Standard.
Steyn now divides his time between Quebec in Canada, and New Hampshire in the United States (in part because of its low taxation and the absence of curbs on gun ownership). He is married to a former editor he met whilst working at the Independent, and has three children.
Steyn and politics
He has long railed against the policies of the Liberal Party, which has dominated federal politics in Canada since the 1960s. These policies include multiculturalism, public healthcare, high taxation, gun control, concessions to Quebec separatists and alleged anti-Americanism, all of which he describes as 'Trudeaupian', in a reference to former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.He was a proponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has continued to support that action and is scornful of the United Nations, advocating either United States withdrawal from the organization or its complete disbandment. He frequently refers to the investigation into corruption at the United Nations, especially the Oil-for-Food Programme, as well as the allegations of [sex-slavery] during Bosnian Peacekeeping operations and inaction during the Rwandan Genocide.
He wrote a column in May 2004 complaining about media bias and low journalistic standards, attributing this to a political agenda, and double standards in relation to the conflict in Iraq:
- "In the last few days, The Mirror, a raucous Fleet Street tabloid, has published pictures of British troops urinating on Iraqi prisoners and the Boston Globe, a somnolent New England broadsheet, has published pictures of American troops sexually abusing Iraqi women. In both cases, the pictures turned out to be fake. From a cursory glance at details in the London snaps and the provenance of the Boston ones, it should have been obvious to editors at both papers they were almost certainly false. Yet they published them. Because they wanted them to be true. Because it would bring them a little closer to the head they really want to roll - George W. Bush's. If you want to see what the Islamists did to Nick Berg or Daniel Pearl or to those guys in Fallujah or even to the victims of September 11, you'll have to ferret it out on the Internet. The media aren't interested in showing you images that might rouse the American people to righteous anger, only images that will shame and demoralize them". [link]
- "The Age’s editor didn’t care for this brusque mean-spirited judgmentalism. As Mr. Jaspan told Australia’s ABC network, 'I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood’s use of the arsehole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought-through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly skeptical of his motives and everything else. The issue really is largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive.'
- And heaven forbid we’re insensitive about “insurgents.” True, a blindfolded Mr. Wood had to listen to his captors murder two of his colleagues a few inches away, but how crude and boorish would one have to be to hold that against one’s hosts? The liberation of Douglas Wood is surely a first: He didn’t get Stockholm Syndrome, but everyone back home did. What’s with this guy, anyway? They fed him every day and if they’d ever got around to sawing his head off they’d have got out the nice sharp scimitar, not the old rusty thing they used for Nick Berg. Like, why’s he so totally insensitive? Is he a Bush supporter or something?"[link]
Steyn on the USA and Islam
Mark Steyn is also a commentator on divisions between the United States and Europe, as well as divisions between the West and the Islamic World. He frequently criticizes the tolerance of perceived Islamic cultural excesses in the name of multiculturalism. Steyn has been accused of prejudice against Muslims, notably by columnist Johann Hari[link], and indeed appears to relish being accused of Islamophobia.Steyn has written [link]:
- "As I understand it, the benefits of multiculturalism are that the sterile white-bread cultures of Australia, Canada and Britain get some great ethnic restaurants and a Commonwealth Games opening ceremony that lasts until two in the morning. But, in the case of those Muslim ghettoes in Sydney, in Oslo, in Paris, in Copenhagen and in Manchester, multiculturalism means that the worst attributes of Muslim culture -- the subjugation of women -- combine with the worst attributes of Western culture -- licence and self-gratification. Tattoed, pierced Pakistani skinhead gangs swaggering down the streets of Northern England are as much a product of multiculturalism as the turban-wearing Sikh Mountie in the vice-regal escort at Rideau Hall. Yet even in the face of the crudest assaults on its most cherished causes -- women's rights, gay rights -- the political class turns squeamishly away.
- "As one is always obliged to explain when tiptoeing around this territory, I'm not a racist, only a culturist. I believe Western culture -- rule of law, universal suffrage, etc. -- is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation."[link]
Steyn polemics
Steyn is known for using humor in his articles. Some find this wry and vivid, but some disagree: liberal columnist Johann Hari calls him "the court jester for the American far right". While for some, Steyn is a gifted polemicist, other readers find him a prejudiced writer who uses poorly sourced facts, and whose perceived reliance on disparagement makes his views less worthy of attention. He has been accused of "Steynwalling": resorting to personal abuse when confronted with his own factual errors. Detractors claim that he disregards both opposing arguments and events that contradict his earlier predictions, including his repeated claims that Osama Bin Laden was "certainly" dead.His interventions in British and European political matters in his Daily Telegraph column have led to hostile reactions. Peter Preston, writing in The Observer in June 2004, took him to task as a 'neo-con ranter'[link], citing Steyn's labelling of Neil Kinnock and Chris Patten as on the 'lunatic fringe' in matters relating to the EU.
Populist cultural positions
Steyn once presented a programme on BBC Radio 3, and boasted that he had been the first person to play a Madonna record on that station. (BBC Radio 3 has historically been a high-culture-orientated station which mainly plays classical music).Steyn has been a vocal critic of American journalism and the so-called j-school culture ostensibly entrenched in the journalism departments of many American universities, describing American newspapers as "the dullest in the world", and dismissing the idea of journalism as a profession to be studied. "When I started out in journalism, in Fleet Street, everybody I knew was only doing journalism because their lives had gone horribly wrong...and that's what happened to me. I needed some money in a hurry and thought I'd do journalism for a few weeks until something better came along, and it never did so now I'm stuck with it."
He refuses to write for the New York Times on the basis of their editorial policies, which he claims erode style and authorial voice.
Geoffrey Pullum controversy
Steyn's 10 May 2006 column in Maclean's commenting on poor writing in The Da Vinci Code [link] drew comment [link] for the striking similarity of some parts of the column to articles in 2004 [link] and 2005 [link] by the linguist Geoffrey Pullum in the Language Log blog. Some have inferred from this that Steyn is a plagiarist[link]. Steyn's office have responded to these accusations, stating that no-one at the office had accessed Pullum's key blog entries at the time the column was written, and that they would be prepared to demonstrate so in court [link]. This leaves open the options of coincidence, indirect sources or that they were accessed from another computer.
Awards
Mark Steyn was recently awarded the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism[link]. The annual award recognizes the work of a columnist, editorialist or writer whose work defends and expresses admiration of the United State’s and its democratic institutions. Steyn's article "Be Glad the Flag Is Worth Burning" was nominated for the award. The following is an extract: "One of the big lessons of these last four years is that many, many beneficiaries of Western civilization loathe that civilization, and the media are generally inclined to blur the extent of that loathing"[link]. The prize included a cheque for $20,000.Bibliography
- Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now (2000)
- The Face of the Tiger (2002)
- Mark Steyn From Head To Toe: An Anatomical Anthology (2004)
- America Alone: Our Country's Future as a Lone Warrior (not yet released)
External links
- [Steyn Online]
- [Quotable Barbs]
- [It's the Demography Stupid] Steyn column on decline of the West due to low birthrates in Wall Street Journal
- [Caught in the cross-fire], column in The Washington Times
- [Liberal journalist Johann Hari's critique of Steyn suggesting he uses Islamophobic conspiracy theories]
- [Steyn October 24 2004, Bin Laden and Loch Ness monster]
- [C-Span, Washington Journal Interview with Mark Steyn]
- [A liberal's point of view of Mark Steyn]
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