06.12.2012 08:39 AM

“That Coyne idiot”

He said it, not me.

Coyne attempts to style his column today as a cautionary tale about social media, and about how, you know, he was the one who taught the lesson.

That’s a lot of hooey, however. Coyne didn’t teach anyone any lesson. He and others who should know better – Wells (“mail a severed foot”), McLeod (retweeting Jun Lin jokes), Wicary (defending Coyne’s tactic), et al. – mocked a young man who died a horrible death, and they were indifferent to the suffering of his family. They looked like complete jerks as a result. They didn’t teach a lesson to anyone, in my opinion.  But they’ll never admit that, of course.

Thus, again, the tweet below. Anyone feel, anywhere, that Coyne et al. did anything other than make themselves look bad, on the very day that Vancouver schools received dismembered limbs in the mail?

29 Comments

  1. Jane says:

    Time to let this go.

    • Warren says:

      Why, Jane? Why? Because I didn’t think it was funny, and said so?

      I don’t care if there’s a “social media” revolution is going on or not. What they did and said was reckless and cruel and stupid, and I don’t care if I’m the only person on Earth who feels that way.

      • Kevin says:

        You’re not.

      • Chris P says:

        Poor Poor taste by Coyne – The audacity and pure elite establishment mentality to lecture the rest of us on the use of social media. I have grown increasingly disappointed with Coyne.

        Your right Warren – Rock on you punk.

  2. Kelly Oh says:

    Full disclosure – the Hitler-Labatt’s tweet made me laugh. I didn’t find the rest funny because it was too soon to use the murder to take a shot at Labatt’s overreaction. They may have made themselves look bad, but they did also succeed in calling attention to that overreaction. Given that Labatt’s did change course, perhaps a lesson was learned.

    And if Coyne’s column is tainted by his tweet, isn’t your umbrage tainted by Daisy’s relationship with Labatt’s?

  3. kitt says:

    I can’t believe that Coyne thinks he is justified in making such a despicable comment!!! There simply is no excuse in being the biggest arse in the world. Coyne’s credibility is totally gone.

  4. Bruce says:

    If Twitter has done anything, it’s given a forum to locker room banter and made it seem profound. I am afraid that’s there’s just too many useless and pointless opinions offered. It never occurred to me that Labatt’s would freak because some alleged killer would consume their product.

  5. DanO says:

    I was wondering when you were going to post about his column. I generally respect Coyne and his opinions but this is a mea culpa column without the apology

  6. Dan says:

    It’s actually more despicable and stupid now. The insult was dumb, but having a lack of empathy is pretty normal in Harper’s Canada these days. What’s far more dumb is pretending it was all part of a larger gameplan. It was right, or it was wrong. No one is buying the bullshit.

  7. bck says:

    People say stupid things all the time – and that doesn’t make it OK. Maybe in cases like this we can hope to rely on individuals’ humility and create the circumstances in which they reflect and then apologize when they err. But it’s probably fair to say that calling people out aggressively for their errors doesn’t usually yield that result, because the defensive reflex kicks in instead. Disappointment versus outrage.. Of course it only works for decent, generally well-meaning people.

  8. Gpeter says:

    The problem with Twitter is that everyone wants to be the first to hit a really pithy line so they get retweeted and begin to trend around the world. In what other medium can a normal person be celebrated in such a way by so many all over?

    The problem of course is that speed often trumps reason; which is why I don’t use Twitter.

  9. W the K - No, not Warren says:

    If this proves anything it’s that youth aren’t the only ones who mess up on social media.

    Before posting always ask yourself what your mama would think.

  10. billg says:

    Mess up? He’s a friggin major Canadian journalist who should be begging forgiveness for his stupidity right now. I havent heard much about this but I’ll go there…if that fuckin nutbar’s victim was a white Canadian female Coyne would be fired by now and everyone on this board would be applauding, or, at worst, if that was the case Coyne would never have made the idiotic comment, and trust me, thats worse. We think we’ve progressed alot but its still just a little.

    • W.B. says:

      I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but I think you are right about the racism/ foreigner aspect of this. Wouldn’t have happened if it had been the son or nephew of a friend of Coyne.

  11. Tim says:

    It was not a good thing to joke about and Andrew Coyne should apologise.
    The rest of it is just playing at smart without being clever. I don’t read his columns because I don’t have the same opinion of his intelligence that you do, so I’m going to take your word that his explanation for the Tweet was bullshit.

  12. Derek Pearce says:

    He’s not a horrible guy. We all do stupid, monumentally insensitive things once in a while. You can remember Jun Lin and forgive a person for an episode of bad taste at the same time.

  13. Jon says:

    What do you see to be the substantive difference between, Coyne’s tweets, and those on May 29 when you had a jovial, punny back and forth with Tim Harper, Bruce Cheadle and Larry Di Ianni on the day the first package arrived? Is it that the victim was not yet known?

    At first glance, I don’t understand why one is acceptable, and the other is completely unacceptable.

  14. palmerston says:

    Well, on Twitter, Coyne has always come across as being a legend in his own mind. A pontificating pundit extraordinaire if you please. Perhaps he should take some down time, do a reality check and stop being so damn complacent with his position. Respect has to be earned and maintained every day in the media or else face having a marginalized opinion.

  15. Dave says:

    Oh come on Warren, you’re really boring when you get all self-righteous and moralistic.

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