The Capped Crusader

HE IS FUCKING DEAD, HELEN. And still, apparently, you cannot summon the basic decency to acknowledge that the allegations of plagiarism were repeatedly investigated and never substantiated. Instead, we are treated to this grotesque little exercise in intellectual taxidermy, where you stuff the corpse of an allegation with qualifications, technicalities and insinuations, then parade it around as though it were still alive. Who the fuck is arguing that Jason Arday never made a mistake? Who is claiming that his work was beyond criticism? You're inventing an argument nobody needs to make because acknowledging the actual findings would require something rather more difficult: admitting that the people making these accusations might have been wrong. There is something utterly repugnant about watching people who pride themselves on intellectual rigour suddenly discover an inexhaustible appetite for ambiguity whenever the evidence fails to vindicate their suspicions. And now the man is dead. His family is grieving. Yet the reputational autopsy continues, conducted by people apparently terrified that acknowledging the findings might deprive them of the last fucking word. This is not courageous journalism. It is moral cowardice dressed up as scholarly fastidiousness. Have some fucking shame.