Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Bye, bye, Rachel, and setting the record straight.


Oh, my, what a difference a night makes, as I wake up this morning to learn that la Marsden is not a Postie anymore. So much for the "Rachel Marsden Watch". I guess I'll have to find someone else to pick on. Who could it be? Who could it possibly be? No.

However, as much as I adore Mme. Z, I am going to have to take issue with what she wrote both in her own comments section and here, where she writes:

If you follow his links, you'll see that Canadian Cynic implies that Marsden claims a column that never appeared in the Post did appear in the Post.

No, I didn't.

If you read my piece, you'll notice that I am obviously speculating wildly about what I thought was simply a rather odd incident. I never accused Marsden of deliberate deception. Rather, I described what I found as "curious," openly asked whether it might have been an "oversight," and even that "I could be completely off-base". I'm not sure how much clearer I could have been that I was just thinking out loud so it's a little grating for Mme. Z to write it up the way she did.

I mean, given that I explicitly admit that "maybe I'm reading too much into this," it seems a little gratuitous for Ms. Zerbisias to write "So Cynic, I think you're pushing it too far here." Um, yeah, I think I had already left open that possibility, if you know what I mean. However, let's tie up some loose ends here, shall we?

I still think Rachel sweetie was playing a bit fast and loose when she snuck that column into her list of publications here. Given that she started her association with the Post on June 1 to great fanfare, and that her columns were, after a few days delay, reproduced at her site, in dated chronological order, there's something just a little slippery about, after establishing a clear pattern, suddenly changing it without warning.

Of course, Marsden has every right to do what she wants at her web site. That's not the point. The point is, once readers get used to a certain ritual, it's a little underhanded to quietly change what's happening underneath with no notice. But, truth be told, I really wish I'd finished my thought at the time because, when I spotted this, my first reaction was, "Uh oh, this is the beginning of the end."

As I've already written, the column in question was just so racist and vile, I couldn't believe any paper (even the Post) would have printed it, and that's the only reason I looked a little closer.

Once I noticed the lack of Post publication date trailer, my immediate reaction was, she's on her way out. Once again, speculating wildly, I'm guessing that the Post folks were never overly comfortable with Marsden but, hey, they hired her and they were going to stick with her.

Until that column.

At which point, I'm imagining Rachel's higher-ups at the paper finally just gagging, handing it back and saying, "No." Followed by a discussion during which both parties agreed that maybe this just wasn't working out, sorry, but lots of luck in your future endeavours.

Wild speculation? Sure. Except that I wasn't the only one thinking thoughts like that -- see Matthew's similar thoughts here. And then I wake up to read that Marsden's cleared out her desk. Yeah, it all sort of fits now, doesn't it?

Remember, you read the totally unfounded, wild, talking-out-of-my-ass speculation here first.

10 comments:

Ouranosaurus said...

I've declared a day of celebration on my blog, littleiguanodon.blogspot.com, in honour of two Marsden-free weeks. Please join in.

CC said...

I'm assuming the festivities involve a good time and a couple of pointless fistfights. Maybe there's cake.

WE Speak said...

Great detective work. Any chance you looked through all the articles listed on her site. Find any others without publication attribution?

CC said...

There was no point looking at any before June 1 since that's when she officially started writing for the Post.

And the very latest ones, not surprisingly, don't have a Post publication date trailer since she's not writing for the paper anymore.

The only indication that there was something fishy was the lack of that trailer on a single issue in the midst of the rest of them.

Anonymous said...

um nice try with yet another conspiracy theory but i notice on her website that she alternates between columns published at the post and columns published elsewhere. that was not her last post column. i see that the one on toronto council this past saturday was. the other one you mention apparently ran in the usa a couple of weeks ago.

back to the drawing board

CC said...

(Heavy sigh.) OK, if I type sloooooowly enough, some of this might sink in.

First, when Marsden was hired at the beginning of June, she was hired explicitly to write two columns a week -- every Wednesday and Saturday.

And, lo and behold, if you go to Rachel's site to the page where she lists her columns, sure enough, you see the dates: June 1, 4, 8, 11, 16(?), 18, ... and so on, nicely matching the pattern (not sure what happened with the June 16 one, perhaps she just missed deadline or something.) But even a pre-schooler can see the pattern.

This pattern continues unabated right up to July 16, with every single one of those columns having a Post publication trailer, except for July 13. How very odd -- why no publication date? And that's what piqued my curiosity originally.

As it turns out (since others have verified it), Marsden didn't have a column in the Post that Wednesday so my suspicions were, in fact, not groundless.

And to top it all off, of course, we have the recent revelation that Marsden is, in fact, gone from the Post. Well, how about that?

It wasn't a "conspiracy theory." It never was a "conspiracy theory," it was simply an observation of what seemed curious at the time, and that's all I presented it as.

As for your claim that that column ran somewhere in the U.S., well, good for you. That wasn't the point of my article, was it?

Game, set, match.

Back to the remedial English classes.

WE Speak said...

"Remember, you read the totally unfounded, wild, talking-out-of-my-ass speculation here first."

We agree on one thing, I'll give you that.

Anonymous said...

All I can say about Marsden is that it didn't happen a moment too soon or to a more deserving individual.

Anonymous said...

Alright already. The woman has been vanquished. Do you want her shaved bald and stoned too?

And CC, sweetie darling, you know I adore you but, while you may have been first off the mark to speculate on her banishment, I was way ahead of you on linking her fortunes to Pyette's.

http://thestar.blogs.com/azerb/2005/05/postit_notes.html

CC said...

Antonia honey,

Trust me, I'm as ready to move on from this as everyone else -- this horse won't get any deader.

I just won't let anonymous commenters drop steaming turds of intellectual dishonesty in my comments section unopposed, that's all.