Hounded: social accountability or bullying?
‘Be kind’ politics champions empathy, civility and respectful dialogue, which sounds inspiring, if not a little patronising. But is it applied inconsistently depending on political outlook? Two-tier hounding – the perceived double standard where the media, the public or institutions aggressively pursue and condemn one group or individual while ignoring or protecting another for comparable conduct – is making some question whether the politics of empathy is really that kind at all, or fair to everyone.
For example, some commentators have argued that Jason Arday was hounded, ultimately to his tragic death, due to disproportionate journalistic reporting and social-media pile-ons, over a plagiarism scandal. Ironically many of his supporters then set about hounding another academic, Nathan Cofnas – a philosopher and former Cambridge researcher who blew the whistle – trying to get him sacked by Ghent University. Is hounding bad unless it’s hounding someone you dislike/disagree with?
Meanwhile, while there is an almost universal demand for more robust, credible journalism, when Times Higher reporter Jason Grove originally tried to investigate the allegations against Arday, he was threatened by high-power lawyers and accusations of racism. When the broader journalistic pack caught up, finally digging into both the plagiarism and associated fantasist claims of marathon runs and much more, they were labelled as bullies. Novara Media, who used a number of hostage-like confessional videos to issue mea culpas, stated: ‘Journalism is when you seek the facts. It’s a quest for the truth… This was anything but. It was bile.’
Complaints about hounding by journalists are now commonplace on all sides of the political spectrum and used to fend off investigative journalism. Reform UK may feel under siege, and unfairly picked on for scrutiny, but surely in a free society we want journalists to ask difficult questions, the very purpose of what journalism is for. Or do Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, et al, have a point that they are being targeted for political reasons, while other political parties get off more lightly?
Elsewhere, while advocates for trans rights argue for the right to live with safety, dignity, and equal protection under the law, those on the other side have been facing far-reaching consequences for disagreeing. Over the past decade, trans activists and their allies have led campaigns to get women fired, disciplined, protested against, have contracts cancelled, be institutionally blacklisted or de-platformed for their views on sex and gender. Jenny Lindsay, in her book Hounded, noted the tactics used against TERFs in the battle to defend the definition of a woman. Lindsay was forced out of the Scottish literary scene purely on the basis of her gender-critical views. Helen Andrews further points out that the institutionalisation of this obsessive empathy has corrupted workplaces, as the politics of kindness has taken away from the more productive competitive work environment – hiring not on the basis of what you do, but what you think.
Therefore, where is the line between investigative journalism and bullying? How do you distinguish between holding people to account for actions that affect the public – like misuse of office, fraud, hypocrisy, harm to others – versus a toxic hounding of the person rather than the claim?
