Mark Steyn
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Mark Steyn (b. 1959) is a Canadian journalist, columnist, film and theatre critic. [1]
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[edit] Career
Steyn was born in Toronto, educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, England, but dropped out of education at 16 and returned to Canada to work as a disc jockey. He is of mixed Jewish and Catholic 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. [2] His first break in journalism came when he was hired as the musical theatre critic for the then newly-established The Independent in London in 1986 (his first review was for The Phantom Of The Opera). In 1992 he became film critic for The Spectator (then owned by the Hollinger group). After a number of years writing predominantly about the arts, his portfolio widened to embrace political comment and he moved to The Daily Telegraph, a conservative-leaning London broadsheet (also then owned by the Hollinger group). Steyn became a close ally of former Canadian and Hollinger chief Conrad Black, and subsequently wrote for many of Black's newspapers.
He is unusual among political writers because of his lack of college education and his sideways move from arts criticism into punditry. 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 and when he returned, Steyn had been 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.
Since then, he has written prolifically for a wide range of publications, many of them owned by Hollinger, including the Jerusalem Post in Israel, the Chicago Sun Times and the National Review in the United States, The Australian, and formerly for the Irish Times in Ireland. He wrote for the Canadian newspaper National Post in the late 90s, but his position became uncertain after the purchase of the newspaper by Canwest Global; he ceased to write there in May 2003. In Canada, he now writes weekly for Maclean's and twice monthly for the Western Standard. He also writes theatre reviews for the New Criterion, obituaries for the Atlantic Monthly, and makes weekly appearances on The Hugh Hewitt Show, a conservative talk radio programme.
Partly through his relationship with the Hollinger group (who own publishing interests internationally), Steyn has been able to develop a readership in print media across the "Anglosphere" - he has, at one time or another, been regularly published (not just syndicated) in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand as well as in Israel. He has sometimes been mistakenly referred to as a 'blogger' - while Steyn's website (www.steynonline.com) collates links to his columns and occasionally publishes material written exclusively for the website, he does not maintain any kind of blog.
In February 2006, Steyn ceased to write for the Spectator or the Daily Telegraph. In response to a letter on his website on 2nd March 2006, Steyn hinted at the reasons 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.
Steyn has written a number of books, including Broadway Babies Say Goodnight (1997), a history of the musical theatre and a number of collections of his columns. After a substantial delay, Steyn's first book on politics, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, was published in October 2006.
Steyn now divides his time between Quebec in Canada, and Lyme, 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.
[edit] 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, opposition to Quebec separatism 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". [3]
In a July, 2005 column for National Review, he again took the "liberal media" to task. In this case it was Andrew Jaspan, editor of the Australian newspaper The Age, who was offended by Douglas Wood, an Australian who was kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq, and then referred to his captors as "arseholes" after he was rescued:
- "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?"[4]
[edit] 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 intolerance in the name of multiculturalism. Steyn has been accused of prejudice against Muslims, and indeed appears to relish being accused of Islamophobia.[citation needed]
Steyn has written [5]:
- "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."[6]
In other articles he has approvingly quoted Winston Churchill's description of Islam as the "strongest retrograde force... in the world". He described as "rather shrewd" Churchill's statement, "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live."
[edit] Steyn polemics
Steyn has a considerable reputation as a gifted and highly visible polemicist. Detractors claim [7] that he disregards opposing arguments, and events that contradict his earlier predictions. These include his repeated claims that Osama Bin Laden was "certainly" dead. His style is to give many such hostages to fortune ( e.g.The war? That was all over two weeksa ago re Iraq, 2003). He has been accused of "Steynwalling"[8]: resorting to abuse when taxed with errors.
His comments on British and European political matters in his Daily Telegraph column led to criticism. Former Guardian editor Peter Preston, writing in The Observer in June 2004, referred to him as a "neo-con ranter"[9] in replying to one of Steyn's columns.[10]
Steyn hosted The Rush Limbaugh Show on August 24, 2006 [11]. He referred to Vietnamese communists as "gooks" (originally an ethnic slur on Koreans) when comparing the Vietnam and Iraq wars, saying,
You know, basically, if you want to find an exit strategy for Iraq, then pretty soon, you're going be — have to be finding an exit strategy for a lot of other places because those jihadists, they're not like the gooks in Vietnam.[12]
He later explained his "gooks" comment in the program stating,
I was using that word with period quote marks around it... So, if anyone was offended, I apologize, and I will try to offend you in a more contemporary sense in the course of the next hour.
Steyn is known for using humor also in his articles. British columnist Johann Hari has referred to him as "the far-right's court jester".[13]
[edit] Populist cultural positions
Steyn's writings show an easy familiarity with past and current pop-cultural phenomena such as South Park.[1] Steyn once presented a programme on BBC Radio 3, and has claimed to be the first person to play a Madonna record on that station. (BBC Radio 3 has historically been a high-culture-oriented 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.
[edit] Awards
Mark Steyn was awarded the 2006 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism [14]. The annual award recognizes the work of a columnist, editorialist or writer whose work defends and expresses admiration of the United States 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"[15]. The prize included a cheque for $20,000.
[edit] Bibliography
- Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now (ISBN 0-415-92286-0) - 1997
- The Face of the Tiger (ISBN 0-9731570-0-3) - 2002
- Mark Steyn From Head To Toe: An Anatomical Anthology (ISBN 0-9731570-2-X) - 2004
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (ISBN 0-89526-078-6) - 2006
[edit] Endnotes
- ^ Steyn, Mark. "Unfair Dinkum: Steve Irwin (1962-2006)." The Atlantic Monthly, November 2006, 150.
[edit] Reference
- Frum, Linda. "The Man Who Likes to Poke the World in the Eye". National Post, Saturday, October 14, 2006. Volume 8, # 297, page A3. [16]
[edit] External links
- Steyn Online
- Quotable Barbs
- Caught in the cross-fire, column in The Washington Times
- C-Span, Washington Journal Interview with Mark Steyn
- The man who likes to poke the world in the eye, National Post, 2006-10-14
- "Is Mark Steyn guilty of plagiarism?" by University of Pennsylvania Linguistics Professor Mark Liberman
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