When Does a Journalist Deserve a Second Chance?

Such a positive reception would have been all but unthinkable in 2011 when Hari, who was then 32 and considered one of the most promising up-and-coming voices in journalism, was suspended from his job as a columnist at The Independentfor plagiarism. As if the plagiarism alone wasn't bad enough, it also came to light amid increased scrutiny that Hari had surreptitiously edited the Wikipedia pages of journalists who had criticized his work. He later resigned from The Independent, offered to return the prize money he had received as the 2008 recipient of the Orwell Prize, and retreated from the scene, presumably wondering how he might ever be taken seriously again should he look to return to writing.

But then, less than three years later, he was back, publishing a rigorous investigation of the war on drugs entitled Chasing the Scream, which would be widely hailed as one of the definitive books written on the subject. On a personal note, after finishing reading both Chasing the Screamand Lost Connections, I was so taken with Hari's writing that I vowed to read whatever books he may have written, no matter the topic. This was until I learned that his only other full-length book was a 2002 monograph advocating for the abolition of the British monarchy, a subject I was unable to muster the interest to explore, regardless of the author writing; being of Irish extraction but having a soft spot for tradition, I'm all too divided on such a question, and, as an American, I'm not sure it's any of my business anyway.

Not everyone has been so forgiving of Hari, though, and I certainly understand their hesitancy. Hari himself is evidently also sensitive to well-founded, lingering concerns about his credibility. In response, his books published since The Independent scandal contain links to the audio files of all the interviews he conducted and are referenced in the books' texts, given that his initial plagiarism largely concerned lines that were presented as being from interviews he conducted when they were actually from elsewhere. However, this has not fully assuaged concerns of "once a cheater, always a cheater." As John Harris writes in his Guardianreview of Chasing the Scream, "... though it might be nice to set aside the events of 2011 and allow him a fresh start, his misdemeanours inevitably colour your experience of the book."

I even recall when an editor wrote to me shortly before a magazine piece of mine was to go to print to inform me that a reference to Lost Connections had to be scrubbed from the final version of my piece because Hari was "not a reputable source." I thought then what I think now: That editor wasn't exactly wrong.

So how do we determine when a journalist or a writer ought to be excused for past transgressions and/or breaking prized journalistic protocols, whether that be committing plagiarism, giving up a source, or just outright lying? Surely, some transgressions are worse than others, with putting a source in danger being likely the worst and being perhaps unforgivable. I have tried in the past to answer this question when it comes to politicians: Whether it be Darrell Issa's carjackings, Mitch Daniels turning his Princeton dorm room into the equivalent of Kensington and Allegheny, or a young Beto O'Rourke's drunk driving and burglary charges, is there a statute of limitations of sorts? Does one have to make concrete restitution that goes beyond a simple "apology tour"? Or does one go away for a while and reflect on what happened, as Hari suggests that he did: "Most people restrain their self-aggrandising and cruel impulses, and I failed to ... I think when you do that, when you harm people, you should shut up, go away and reflect on what happened."

But the elephant in the room with this entire conversation is that some journalists, very much including certain household name ones, habitually run afoul of journalistic ethics but escape lasting scrutiny. Brian Williams, for instance, seems to have rebounded quite well from his imagined helicopter ride, bringing to mind comedian Bill Burr's take on the general principle: Following an indiscretion, media executives wait that requisite amount of time before bringing a given offender back on the air once said executives determine how much money the offender can make them. The Rachel Maddow Show indeed experienced a ratings dip when Maddow's overwrought predictions about Russian collusion failed to be substantiated, but she is very much back, even amid renewed attention to a 2020 court ruling that she is among "speakers whose statements cannot reasonably be interpreted as allegations of fact." Although recent readership and ratings dips across the industry might have something to do with the hypothesized "post-Trump slump," one cannot help but wonder if the selective enforcement of journalistic accountability might also be a lurking factor.

Journalists and commentators from John Derbyshire to Chris Matthews have, for their various reasons, been, as the parlance of the day goes, "cancelled." For a while Hari was among their ranks; however, the Hari Renaissance suggests that second chances are sometimes quite warranted. On the flip side, though, would we really welcome a return of Sabrina Erdely, who infamously concocted the now-retracted Rolling Stone piece "A Rape on Campus"? One does wonder if there might be a way to formalize -- industry-wide -- when a beleaguered journalist deserves a second chance. My intuition, however, continues to be that we might be better served to maintain the discretion of a given news outlet or publisher to determine this for itself.