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Don’t Feel Sorry for Cathy Newman, She Deserves the Mockery
By now many on Ricochet will have heard about or seen the now infamous video between Channel 4 “journalist” Cathy Newman and the darling of the new right Jordan Peterson. Channel 4 “news” is like Britain’s version of MSNBC except it, in the condescendingly British way, pretend to be fair and impartial. A lie if ever there was one.
Anyway as Jordan Peterson was on a tour of the UK they perhaps felt he would be good for their ratings to invite him on to discuss topical issues. What happened next is the video that is perhaps one of the greatest takedowns of smug liberal feminism that you will ever see this year. Why Channel 4 news agreed to publish the whole video is beyond me. Perhaps they taught their arch-feminist inquisitor would decimate poor Jordan or that his fans would give them some much-needed internet volume. Their news show is least watched of the big UK channels.
Spoiler alert — that didn’t happen. Instead, Cathy Newman was outclassed, outsmarted, and overpowered by a polite, soft-spoken Canadian who answered every acid-laden question she threw at him and was still respectful to her. It becomes clear to even the most sympathetic viewer that the whole interview was a set-up from early on as she tried — more than once — to trick him into saying something “bigoted” or hateful so Peterson would able to be labeled as at best a fool at worst a far-right bigot. Thankfully Jordan with his politeness and straight-talking not only destroyed her arguments but made it so that the interview backfired on her. So much so that the brilliant English conservative journalist Douglas Murray said she should take out a super-injunction on the video.
Its normal under some circumstances now to feel pity for her. But most Americans and those outside Britain should not fall for such pity. Cathy Newman has a history of doing the above stunts to politicians or people she disagrees with politically and launching attacks on those with different opinions to her.
- She repeatedly asked one of Britain’s few openly Christian politicians his opinions on gay sex. This meant he eventually had to resign as leader of his political party.
- She lied about getting kicked out of a Muslim mosque — never happened
- She openly and angrily denounced the Christian (again) MP Jacob Rees Mogg for his opposition to abortion and his stance on gay marriage.
- She openly called for a ban on pro-life vigils outside abortion clinics. (Free speech for pro-choice liberals but not pro-lifers)
- She lied about pro-lifers and stated falsely that they had helped influence mass shooters at abortion clinics. Vile statement altogether.
- She openly and repeatedly argues for feminism (enough said).
- It’s very easy to see her own positions come across in the people she interviews. (Sadly a flaw all too common in “journalists” today)
There are many more things I could add. It’s just that I don’t feel like now. You get the point. One last note: Apparently Newman is supposed to be getting a lot of death threats now, post video. I don’t doubt its true and that threats of death are wrong. But I also don’t doubt that much of the milder criticism she is getting is more than justified. Some of it is also quite funny.
Some of the comments underneath the video are great fun. Read them and enjoy. Oh, and God bless Jordan Peterson. It’s nice to see Canada is producing some excellent people.
This is why people hate journalists. After showing up one of their own, Channel 4 news did this.
Its sole purpose was to make Jordan Peterson look weird. Dishonest. But Peterson still got the last laugh. God bless him..
Published in General
No, she’s a demagogue. An idiot does not participate in public life. A demagogue rallies the mob.
…
Upon reflection, demagogue doesn’t seem quite right either. She’s not a leader, per se.
Alternatively, I might accept the word fool to describe her. The difference between an idiot and a fool is that a fool participates in public life.
(The word derives from the Latin follis, which means “bellows”. i.e. A windbag.)
(Further descriptions of fools here: Proverbs 12:23, Proverbs 14:8, Proverbs 15:2)
I might also use the word diogenic, after Diogenes who made a sport of trying to sabotage Socrates’ lectures.
Milo’s not a great you tuber. I gotta say Prager is making a pretty great youtube presence.
The only reason any of us know Spencer’s name at all is because the media decided that a little nobody heading a tiny group of nobodies decided to make him the face of all Trump supporters.
Let’s put that in perspective. What is the average nightly audience for Anderson Cooper? There are dozens of people with numbers equal to cable news hosts. And I’m not even talking about the really big channels.
They co-opted the word “alternative”, changing it from “everybody not convinced by the received wisdom of the elites” to “a substitute set of received wisdom, superior to that of the elites, and therefore more elite”.
Maybe the rest of us should call ourselves “skeptico-right”.
Milo is a pretty great orator, and his public talks made for great video. When he lost the ability to fill halls, he lost his ability for great video. Now he’s just a talking head.
Prager’s success comes from his organization’s ability to combine words and images, which is key for great video.
Peterson’s videos are almost all dialogues, which is what makes his stuff interesting. It’s usually either an interview or it’s a class lecture where students are free to ask questions. He’s not just a talking head.
That, plus his schtick gets older the more you see it.
How about just the right, and “right” now the right is the counter culture vs the left wing hegemony. Milo does get old and I don’t think he thinks too deeply.
It’s one thing to break taboos in the service of a larger point, but that’s not what Milo does. He treats breaking taboos as an end in itself, often crossing the line into being deliberately offensive. This not only is morally dubious in itself, but it undermines those like Jordan Peterson and Heather MacDonald who are trying to bring important but uncomfortable facts to light out of legitimate concern that those issues need to be addressed.
I don’t see how this could undermine Peterson or anyone else. Leftists might try to play all sorts of McCarthyite guilt-by-association games, but that’s on them, not us.
I am a Trump supporter and I have never heard of this Spencer nor read any articles about or from him, had no knowledge of him until someone mentioned him here on Ricochet. From the statements on Ricochet he sound like someone I wouldn’t bother with.
Technically, Dr. Peterson said “multivariate,” which is the correct term.
Hardly anyone knows what this means, on either side. You have to master upper division undergraduate probability and statistics, and probably take a good applied course like econometrics, in order to really understand. The concept is accessible to any reasonably bright person of goodwill, but requires trust in the expertise of those with greater mathematical knowledge, just as we have to trust our mechanic to explain, in somewhat simplified terms, what is wrong with a broken car.
I actually excelled during a year of math graduate school, almost 30 years ago, before becoming a lawyer, so I know this stuff pretty well. Because of my special expertise in this area, it is difficult for me to assess whether people without such an unusual background are easily able to understand the concepts. My sense is that people on the Right generally are, while people on the Left are not. However, I see no reason to believe that there is a substantial difference in the intelligence distribution between Left and Right, so I suspect that the difference is ideological, and perhaps temperamental as well.
Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, is helpful in this regard. He explains a reaction common to all sides, which is essentially confirmation bias. When we hear a fact that supports our world view, we excitedly ask “can I believe it?” When we hear a fact that challenges our world view, we skeptically ask “must I believe it?”
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Peterson-Newman interview, including a line of questioning that I would have pursued in response to her question about a 9% gap in median hourly earnings between men and women.
First, I would have complemented her for using hourly earnings, rather than the income figure generally used by the Left in such discussions — for example, by President Obama in the state of the union address.
Newman recognized that there may be other explanations for a wage differential, and that hours worked is an obvious one. This means she should be open to the possibility that there are others. I would have explained that in order to answer this question, you need to perform a multivariate analysis.
Next, I would have asked her what a median is. I suspect that she would not have known the difference between a median and an average.
I would have asked her if she completed calculus. I would have asked her if she took even an introductory course in probability and statistics. I would have asked her if she took introductory microeconomics. I suspect that the answers would have been no.
I would then have pointed out that, because she had not studied such matters, she did not have even the basic analytical tools necessary to evaluate, much less debate, the gender wage gap issue.
I think that I would have said that this was OK. I don’t know how to fix my car, or do a good job with anything more than fairly rudimentary plumbing or electrical repairs. We rely on people with greater expertise in a particular area all the time, but need to defer to their greater knowledge.
We could still have an excellent discussion, if she were doing her job as a journalist and genuinely leading a conversation in which the person with greater expertise explained the facts, and helped both Newman and her viewers reach a greater understanding, and perhaps change their erroneous preconceptions.
That’s why the public talks made for good video. The audience injects uncertainty into the product.
That would have come across as elitist bullying. He was trying to treat her the way he would treat a student, and I doubt he would answer a student’s question by asking them if they had completed the prerequisites for taking his class.
Remember, the entire reason people like his performance in this interview is because he refused to play the same game she was playing. She was trying to make him look small, be he wasn’t trying to do the same to her in return. Belittling her educational credentials would have been a major rhetorical misstep.
Maybe you’re right. Though if it was a student, he would have known, or could assume, the prerequisites.
I think that you’re on to something, but that something is exactly the problem. People think that they are experts when they are not. They’re then offended when this is brought to their attention.
I would not have been belittling her educational credentials. I would have been pointing out that she did not have the education or experience to evaluate this particular issue.
I don’t presume to be an expert in, say, astrophysics or oncology, and would therefore be very hesitant to challenge a spacecraft design or cancer treatment regimen. I could intelligently asked questions, and expect reasonable explanations to help me understand and perhaps even make a decision (regarding cancer treatment, for example), but in such a discussion I would be the learner, not the master.
This. He seemed to listen in earnest. Any perception created of her was her responsibility.
In his literally perverse way, Milo is conservative. He enjoys breaking taboos, and sexually seems fixated on the old fashioned ones. (At least for now.) But I don’t think he’s a postmodernist. He really gets it about free speech and gets it about Sharia.
The Left, on the other hand, is postmodernist, and ultimately wants to abolish all eternal verities leaving only the struggle for power. Any taboos it has will be transient and instrumental, not principled. Any resemblance this state of affairs has to the Screwtape Letters is of course purely coincidental.
Same here. The only place I’ve heard of this guy is on Ricochet, and I still don’t know what he does. Nor do I much care.
If you put any of this people into the alt-right category, then I don’t think you know what alt-right is. Lauren southern is a truth seeker and is doing amazing investigative work on the decline of Europe. You really should check her work out. Also, most of those guys (I’m over Milo he’s like the Kim Kardashian of pundits) are really just truth seekers and I know Gavin is a western chauvinist. If you especially think Jordan Peterson is alt right then you don’t know what it is.
The key difference between Milo and a Left-postmodernist is that Milo believes in the existence of sin.
Sure, he revels in the fact that he’s a sinner, but he doesn’t deny that he’s a sinner.
Great comparison.
The rhetorical problem is that “alt-right” is a new all purpose dismissive condemnation by the Left. Just look at the swarm of Left responses to the interview.
To the extent that the label was ever useful, it’s irretrievably lost.
I think conceding to folk like Richard Spencer the power to define the limits of “right-wing alternative” is a very unfortunate occurrence.
It’s kinda like saying that to be punk you must have a mohawk. Punks are supposed to be against conformity.
The word “alternative” should not be allowed to refer to only a specific, narrowly-defined alternative option. It should include everything that is outside the mainstream.
But, there’s no going back now after Charlottesville. They own the label now.
It doesn’t undermine it. It’s one of many avenues that lead people to better ideas. I hate this circular firing squad we have on our side on relatively benign figures.
That’s the distinction I was groping for. Thank you.
I think he’s also got physical courage. I suspect that in his own mind, Milo would like to be one of those flamboyant, foppish degenerate cavalry officers from one of the best regiments; one with really outrageous uniforms. The British aristocracy produced them for centuries. Some of them were very courageous indeed.
Yes, the term was fun until he ruined it. Have you heard Richard Spencer debate or even engage in conversation? How has this man lead to the head of any movement? His ability to engage in an argument, illustrate a point, or define an idea are terrible. He stole the term alt-right because outside of being “racist” he’s just plain dumb and uninteresting.
Out here in the Brushed Aluminum state I’ve met people like Cathy Newman. I don’t think she was trying to make him look small, but rather was trying to find a way to be offended. In what passes for her mind, if she is offended, that trumps anything that Peterson might say even is it has an indisputable factual basis. It’s a common technique for people such as she to say, “So you’re saying …” I’ve heard it a lot. About all he could do was refuse to let Newman put words in his mouth and respond with, “No. What I said was …”
Agreed. I hate the, “I have a degree therefore you are wrong,” ploy, and would have been disappointed at best to see someone I generally agree with resort to that.
Those of you who are unfamiliar with Richard Spencer shouldn’t feel bad. His only talent is in self-promotion, and he is proof — as if any more were needed — that white “supremacists” are all distinctly below average.
Double-plus like.