Straight Talk

Sara Lee journalists don't do a hell of a lot for the world

by Charlie Smith on September 15th, 2013 at 3:14 PM
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      As this is being written, I have a solid lead in a Georgia Straight online survey asking which B.C. political journalist is the most disliked.

      This is a good thing.

      It means that some of my articles have riled and provoked readers.

      I'm also proud to say that I'm not a Sara Lee journalist.

      I've borrowed that term from Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who has decried the number of "Sara Lee lawyers" in his profession.

      Dershowitz's 2001 book, Letters to a Young Lawyer, condemned those legal advocates—those Sara Lee lawyers—who were more interested in being liked than in standing up to injustice.

      In using this phrase disparagingly, he was riffing on the food company Sara Lee's corporate slogan: "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee."

      Dershowitz suggested in his book that lawyers without enemies are usually sycophants, whereas those with the right enemies have advocated for the poor, disenfranchised, and despised against powerful interests.

      "A really good enemies' list is often a sure sign of a courageous and moral person," he writes. "The world is full of evil people and it is important to stand up to evil."

      So if influential people who trounce on the disenfranchised happen to be voting for me in the Georgia Straight online poll of hated journalists, I take that as a compliment.

      I would be far more concerned if I was coming last in this type of survey.

      That's because embodying Sara Lee's slogan—or simply being a stenographer—has never been one of my journalistic ambitions.

      Comments

      13 Comments

      Forest

      Sep 15, 2013 at 6:47pm

      It's so hard to choose amongst the top three! (Baldry, Fletcher and Mason).

      Jes

      Sep 15, 2013 at 7:40pm

      How do you count Margaret
      Wente?

      James Blatchford

      Sep 15, 2013 at 9:13pm

      .....Ed Watson?!? It just isn't right having him on a list like this....you'll be hearing from his mother!

      cathy

      Sep 15, 2013 at 10:08pm

      Hey i thought Keith Baldrey would walk away with this one.
      No one is as annoying as him.

      Anyways, keep up the good work Charlie Smith-we want more!

      Michael

      Sep 15, 2013 at 10:31pm

      Get her to move to BC first.

      a local reader

      Sep 15, 2013 at 10:51pm

      charlie smith is the best local journalist i can think of.

      Charlie Smith

      Sep 16, 2013 at 8:20am

      One of my sisters emailed me to say the results look like voter fraud.

      In this era of robocalls sending people to the wrong polling station on voting day, I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

      Charlie Smith

      Greg Robinson

      Sep 16, 2013 at 8:26am

      "Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation!"

      - from Father Mapple's sermon, chapter 9 of Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

      Probably still my favourite book, and I won't apologize for how conventional that may appear. These days most people refer to Moby Dick as that thick tome no one wants to read. That's probably because it's brimming with such unpopular truths.

      Alan Layton

      Sep 16, 2013 at 8:35am

      No, you're leading the pack because most of your stories are pointless and tabloid-like. But let's be honest, it was a loaded question anyways because it was obvious you were hoping to be picked because it gives you at least some form of fame. There is no bad press.