Fact-Checking for Dummies. And Breitbart.

Several folks have pointed me to the article SJWs Are Purging Politically Incorrect Sci-Fi Authors From Bookstores over on Breitbart, where my name is mentioned in connection with allegations that the ISIS-like liberals are working to censor works and authors who “represent something that falls outside a rigid, intolerant ideology.”

The article opens with the claim:

“File 770, the blog of three-time Hugo Award winner Mike Glyer, reports that bookstore owners in Toronto are being approached with negative information about authors who participated in the Sad Puppies Hugo Awards campaign.”

Breitbart doesn’t provide a link, but the “report” in question was actually a comment on the File770 site, from user Dexfarkin, who said:

“…someone is sending out Jim Hines roundup of the SP/RP affair. As a result, they are stopping making orders for Correia, Wright, Torgersen, Williamson and others of the worst broadcasters who have supported homophobic statements. I would assume the originator is part of Toronto’s gay community (which was oddly intertwined for years when Baka Books and the GLAAD bookstore were next door). It’s only the independents that I’ve heard so far, but if it hits Book City or Indigo, that could be a big repercussion.”

In other words, Allum Bokhari’s article is based on a comment someone made on the internet.

Fair enough. A comment can be a good starting point, and I’m sure there was further research to verify the comment and do some fact-checking before running to the internet to denounce the horrible SJWs, right?

Yeah, not so much. No links, no verification, none of the simple steps that could have saved this piece from being such a delusional, masturbatory trainwreck.

Let’s start with that Jim Hines roundup of the SP/RP affair. It’s a blog post I did in June of last year, called, “Puppies in Their Own Words.” You know what words never appear in that article? “Williamson” and “Wright.” That’s right, my roundup post is being used to try to destroy the careers of authors who…um…weren’t actually included in the article.

To be fair, Wright’s name does come up in the comments. Williamson? He doesn’t show up at all.

But hey, maybe there’s something here, right? Let’s do a little more digging. Commenter Dexfarkin posted a follow-up:

“I don’t have any real proof either. I was at a local Meetup just before Christmas when the Hugos came up and one of the people there was a shop owner. He mentioned that he’d gotten a printout of a round up (that sounded a lot like Jim C. Hines) which had the various homophobic parts highlighted and a request to not stock the authors responsible and he was going to do it. I was down in Seekers this week and the guy at the cash mentioned hearing the same thing from another store owner…”

Other commenters note:

• “Bakka Phoenix had Larry Correia’s latest in its new arrivals section as of Saturday.” (Source)
• “I passed by a Toronto Indigo (Yonge & Eglinton for the Torontonians) on my way from the dentist to work this morning. Two titles each for Wright (Tor) and Correia – in both cases their latest hardcover and their latest paperback.” (Source)
• ETA: Toronto bookstore Bakka-Phoenix posted on Facebook, “…from a Canadian perspective, Breitbart looks more like an outlet for the borderline-lunatic fringe than a credible news source … But if you were wondering, we can assure you that we ourselves carry many books we find personally or politically reprehensible … We’re in the business of selling books. Good books. Bad books. Titles some people love; titles others hate enough to throw across the room. Some books will transform readers minds and lives and be remembered for decades. Others will be forgotten immediately upon reading (or even partway through). We don’t have to like a book, its author, or its message in order to sell it.” (Source)

This is what rates an article on Breitbart. “Hey, a commenter on the internet said that some unnamed person is talking to a couple of Toronto bookstores and showing them what some of the Sad/Rabid Puppies have said and asking them not to stock a  said puppies. Oh, and yeah, there’s no actual evidence of it having any effect.”

For bonus points, Bokhari goes on to say:

“The commenter is, of course, incorrect to suggest that the authors have made homophobic statements. Williamson is a self-proclaimed libertarian, and there are no records of Correia or Torgersen making controversial statements about homosexuality … The only one who could plausibly face such an accusation is Wright, who has described homosexuality as an ‘aberration.'”

Oh, sure. I mean, Wright is also the one who said “I have never heard of a group of women descended on a lesbian couple and beating them to death with axhandles and tire-irons, but that is the instinctive reaction of men towards fags,” but it’s not like that’s homophobic, right? (Screenshot) And yeah, Torgersen’s best-known attack against John Scalzi was to imply that Scalzi might not be straight, but what’s homophobic about suggesting the worst thing a man can be is anything but straight? (Ironically, Torgersen’s homophobic remark is documented in my Puppies roundup post from last year.)

Bokhari wraps up his article by pointing to the “persecution” of Theodore Beale, who was banned from Goodreads.

“Politically unorthodox authors are also facing persecution on Goodreads, the foremost social network for book readers. The controversial author Vox Day was recently banned from the site after creating a “Rabid Puppies” group on the site…”

Persecution. Interesting…

This brings us full circle back to File770, which recently reported on Beale getting booted from Goodreads. Not as a result of Evil SJW Conspiratorial Badthink, but because Beale clumsily attempted to manipulate Goodreads ratings by targeting the books of his enemies. (Screenshot 1, 2, 3)

On the bright side, as far as I can tell, Allum Bokhari did manage to spell his name correctly. So he got that much right, at least.