Dear readers, I promise not to tax your patience much further with the tiresome topic of John Miller, "the jouralism doctor" who isn't a doctor, and doesn't really do a lot of journalism.
Yesterday, in my comments, he challenged me to a debate:
Hey Ezra
So you've taken a couple of shots at me (you went first, remember)and I've taken a shot at you. Where are we at?
The editors at J-Source, a journalism website, have asked me to approach you about the prospect of us facing off on freedom of speech vs. responsibility in an e-mail debate that they will put up on their site.
Interested? I see it as an online conversation, more intense than a long-distance bombardment which we are doing at the moment. It will afford us the chance to actually answer and parry each others' comments.
I am extending this offer with a generous incentive: You get to go first.
Let me know what you think.
John
Here's what I wrote back to him by e-mail:
Hi John. I received and posted your comment inviting me to a debate on j-source.ca. John, I'm sure j-source.ca are nice people -- I notice you're one of their editors -- but nobody visits that site. According to compete.com, only 198 different people have visited j-source all month:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ezralevant.com+j-source.ca/?metric=uv
I know that compete.com is a bit inaccurate -- it says I only got 5,405 5,305 unique visitors last month, and I've had nearly 8,000 today alone. But still -- don't you want someone to actually read our debate?
I have two problems with your invitation, though. First, your proposed debate is a false dichotomy: freedom vs. responsibility. I think you deeply misunderstand the nature of each if you think they are opposed.
Second, before I answer your question, you ought to answer my question, posed on my blog: if you had been granted intervenor status before the BCHRT, who would have paid your bills? I notice that you advertise yourself as a professional witness. Who was your prospective client?
I think it's the ethical thing to do to reveal any potential conflicts of interest here. You heaped praise on the Canadian Islamic Congress's Khurrum Awan at the Halifax conference. Was the CIC your prospective client? If so, why didn't you mention that at the conference? If not, who was?
Cheers.
Ezra
Alright. I promise to talk about something more interesting now. But I am curious, aren't you? For an old scold who keeps lecturing everyone about journalistic ethics, Miller seems to be evading the question about who was going to cover his proposed intervention against Mark Steyn.
