By a strange twist of fate it was a reader’s letter to the Cape Times that caused three newspaper editors to finally call for Darrel Bristow-Bovey’s resignation in September. By that time the debate was raging into its ninth inglorious week and, despite hard evidence of serial plagiarism and calls for action from several members of the media and academia, his three editors and his dubious publishers continued to pretend that nothing was wrong. Which just goes to show the low esteem in which the journalistic profession holds itself in this country. When other columnists cry foul they must be envious, but when a reader does then it’s taken seriously. So more power to our readers, say I.
As anyone who is even slightly familiar with employment law must be aware, asking for a resignation is a cleaner way of sacking someone because it means that the words “dismissed” don’t need to appear on a future CV. It also reduces the risk of any subsequent legal action for wrongful dismissal. All perfectly reasonable in the circumstances because this was a simple case of a breach of good faith between employer and employee. Unfortunately we writers only really have one asset in addition to any talent we may have for putting words on paper, and that is our integrity. Once that is in question, we are nothing.
Following Bristow-Bovey’s hat-trick of resignations the comments pages on a couple of websites were full of readers’ opinions, most of them anonymous and deliberately intended to be offensive. Contrary to Gus Silber’s opinion, the plagiarsm debate was of great interest to non-journalists. I’ve never quite understood why any contributor to a website should be afforded parliamentary privilege and be allowed to defame anyone without fear of legal action, but I’m sure there is a reason.
I wasn’t surprised to read comments suggesting that I must have hated Darrel a lot to have hounded him over this issue. Heather Dugmore, a freelance journalist, expressed similar sentiments in a letter to a newspaper and Nicole Fritz (after panting at the prospect of sitting at the same table as Darrel) said as much in a comment piece in The Star. They weren’t the only ones and I came in for plenty of criticism from other journalists, both in the radio and print media. Indeed, Bristow-Bovey gave several interviews in which he laid the blame for his demise at my door while continuing to burble that he didn’t think of himself as a plagiarist.
Unfortunately they all conveniently concentrated on the personalities rather than the facts. It might have been quite distressing had I not been reminded of Robert Kirby’s earlier comments that all the cheering for Darrel was coming from the monkey house.
Interestingly, much of my support came from black journalists who clearly appreciated the ethical argument better than many of their white colleagues, and who weren’t prepared to compromise their values by turning the debate into a vote for their favourite personality.
So did I hate Darrel Bristow-Bovey enough to relentlessly hunt him and ruin him? The answer is no. Bristow-Bovey certainly didn’t need my help to finish off a promising career. He was quite capable of doing that with his unique blend of dishonesty, bluster, bullying and arrogance. All I did was hold the exit door open for him and slam it firmly shut when he departed. And do I hate him now? Well, hatred is such a negative emotion and requires far more energy than I am willing to expend in his particular case. So let me just say this—.I don’t think I’ll be inviting him to the launch of my next book.