The Night Jian Ghomeshi and Toronto Star Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan (sort of) Ate Dinner Together
In September Toronto Star investigative reporter Kevin Donovan happened to get seated at a TIFF dinner next to Jian Ghomeshi, whom he’d been trying to interview for several weeks about the allegations that JG had abused women. Donovan reports it made for quite a surreal evening, including when Ghomeshi tried to warn him off the story with a not-so veiled threat: “People in this city need to understand that I have a long memory. You need to understand that and be very, very careful.” What’s weird to me is that he evidently thought his threat would be enough to make the report and newspaper back off, the same reporter and paper that had just some months earlier investigated and reported with great detail many scoops on Rob Ford, which elicited many unavailing threats from the Ford brothers.You may read the rest of Donovan’s story via this link.
This has been an interesting story to follow , and I have been reading , maybe too much. In the Canadian context there is a big issue. For months First Nations and their supporters have been calling for a national inquiry on the high rates of missing and murdered First Nations women, a call rejected by our federal government .These calls are re-echoed when First Nations women are found murdered , and re-ignored by government. The police are definitely a problem, demonstrated by the tragedy that engulfed Rehtaeh Parson’s life . Rhteah ( not FN) was a young teenager, whoi drank too much at a party, and was raped by other guests, and filmed while being attaked. She triued to keep the attack secret but the photo’s were passed around, he reputation shattered. She went to the police who didn’t even interview her assailants.After moving schools failed to end the online harassment Rehtaeh took her own life. Only then did police finally make an arrest charging one boy with production of child porn by filming her assault and sharing the images .Jian was able to conduct a lifestyle of abuse because none of his victims thought they would be believed, and at least the 3 women who spoke with the TO Star were well aware of the backlash against a feminist blogger who had written about a date with Gomeshi ( who she only identified as a radio hipster from TO) where he had repeatedly groped her . Gomeshi’s fans saw the report and online harassment campaign began. Similarly, even after Rehtaeh took her life, posters supporting her attackers were seen on phone poles .The crisis of violence against women stretches beyond Canada , the activities of Boko Harram and ISIS as the outliers , but it is the same crisis. As I see it, men are losing control of their lives and their governments, and seeking power by controlling the weakest members of their own society, women and children . There is another parallel that I have been seeing more all the time, and that is the conection between our unrelenting assault on Mother Nature, and the abuse of females throughout the world. I expect we will turn the corner on abuse of women, when we turn the corner on abuse of nature
Thanks, Geoffrey, sad stuff about young Ms Parsons. Interesting point about “Mother” Nature and the assaults on women. The world has to change.