The epitome of journalistic bravery
Christie Blatchford is, in the woeful and soft phrasing we use in speaking of those who died too soon, “no longer with us.” Mortality allows no dissent on its judgments. Yet we can and should allow that out of our kind, some people, who exhibited immense presence through their life and work — in Christie’s case both were one — do stay as a presence, and a vivid one, in the minds of those who were closely acquainted either with that life or that work, or the most fortunate, those who closely knew both before her death a year ago today.
It is impossible to be a Canadian journalist and not still sense the radiation of her example, feel still some pulse of the vitality she brought to the trade with her force, candour and clarity.
It is a hard time for journalism almost everywhere, and whenever it submits to a downgrade in its pursuits, or bends to the wilfulness of mixed and impure practice, panders to trendy moralists, or genuflects to the Mayfly obsessions of cancel culture (it is not a culture, it is an anti-culture), it is quite impossible not to think of her. It is certainly so for me.
I cannot really conceive of her full anger when newspapers flee from the hornet nests of Twitter mobs and bathe in sweaty apologies, when one of their own gets “virtue-signalled” out of a career.
yielding to insolent, ignorant online vigilantes passing unearned judgment on others, who are in many cases manifestly their betters in journalism and judgment, is a practice which would have appalled her. bowing down to those howling the loudest or whining the most ostentatiously was alien to the very depths of her character.
A journalist without spine, or a newspaper without some regard for simply what is right, as opposed to what is trendily seen as the fashionable moralisms of the moment — both would be seen by her as dreadful, contradictions in terms. Playing easy with the conventional and approved “standards” of speech, yielding to gratuitously imposed “requirements” of sensitivity, and all the deplorable catalogue of our regnant regime of political correctness, would be anathema to her. And I am certain that even at this very moment when some journalists think for a while about whether they should say something or write something — under apprehension they might get “attacked” — they remember her. They remember her straight courage, remember her deep valuations of the practice of real journalism, and then make the right choice. Her example holds. She may no longer “be with us” but she constitutes an enduring element in the ethos of proper journalism.
As I said last year, many at the National Post, indeed many at all the venues she ornamented with her work over that wonder of a career, knew her better, met her more frequently, and had the advantage of the full range of that quite wonderful wild personality. but even one such as I was, somewhat in the outer orbits of her acquaintance, learned from my more slender contact the essence of her manner and practice.
Courage, rarest of virtues and the father of all the rest, was her principal characteristic. It is not eulogy or strained but understandable overstatement on the anniversary of her death to say again this truth about her. She was the bravest of all Canadian journalists. She spoke what few of us had the nerve to think. She wrote of the dubious testimony in the Jian Ghomeshi case — I pause here to note what a pileup that would make today now that Twitter has reached its meretricious maturity: the internet would fail from the burdens of outrage from every woke self-nominated tribune in the land.
She covered and wrote a book on the deplorable lawlessness in Caledonia, so easily tolerated by law-reverencing Ontario. In other words, she went up to the electrified journalistic fence. She waltzed into Queen’s university when the junior illuminati of that university harassed her, deplored the idea of her showing up, never mind speaking. She could, in silence, just have kept away from so many issues and subjects that torment our present polity, and no one would have noticed, no one would have criticized her.
except for one person, that is. Herself. It’s not for me to speak of others, but I’m fully prepared to say I haven’t half her nerve or a quarter of her scruple in always saying, what in full and considered judgment, should be said.
She was brave in simpler ways, too. She liked men. She liked men who were men. I expect if someone were to have brought up the phrase “toxic masculinity” when she was within earshot, they’d have had a shot to the ear themselves. Hockey players and the boys in the military — she had regard, let me be clear, for the women, too — were her love, delight, and the latter most especially, the object of her deepest admiration. These personal attributes are not among the sanctified values these days. She had always a lot of good things to say about those people whom our woke bien pesants make it their blissful indulgence to deplore.
Properly speaking she was the very emblem of real feminism. A woman who went where she wanted, took no lip or attitude from anyone, man or woman, and spat on any editor who crossed the line as quickly as she would damn a wilful lawyer, or reject with scorn any self-professed social justice warrior.
She was independent with a capital I, and claimed no privilege, no cushion or special regard because she was female. And on her own industry, her own work, her own practised skills she went to the head of the profession she chose.
What a gal! (yes, she would have OK’D that). Is she missed? More than sunshine in Newfoundland. More than ice cream in August. More than music in grey times. She had more brass than a tuba factory and was sweeter than a jar of cookies.
Missed, yes and greatly. but as I asserted at the beginning of this meagre salute, still present, still valued, still mourned.
SHE SPOKE WHAT FEW OF US HAD THE NERVE TO THINK.