Bleeding-heart socialist Johann Hari has been caught red-handed as a bleedin’ cheat. He has been called out for stealing quotes from a book and pretending he had been told them face to face, adding descriptions of the scene like “with a shake of the head” and “then he says, in a quieter voice”. Brian Whelan the UK Editor of Yahoo! has demolished Hari:

“The quote is sewn together with a string of other ideas Levy may or may not have shared with Hari but at no point does Hari indicate the quotes are taken from elsewhere… While Hari has questions to answer over the quotes he claims were given directly to him he also seems to be freely creating mash-up quotes out of disparate statements levy has made over the years. Not the practice of an award winning hack… If the Indy really did send him to Scotland for these quotes I think Hari’s editor needs to sit him down for a chat.”

Hari has responded saying that he was merely accurately quoting the works of the writer he has interviewing, but his argument falls apart when you look at the other sources of some of the quotes –  interviews with other hacks, that are not referenced or acknowledged. Sod the Orwell Prize, Hari can add The Stephen Glass Award 2011 to his already cluttered mantelpiece.

UPDATE: Guido sat down for a quiet chat with Johann this morning. He said pensively “I have become the Nadine Dorries of the commentariat, though it is 70% made-up with me.”

UPDATE II: This from August 2010 is worth re-reading: Johann Hari is a liar