Recovering brand integrity

Seems to be le mode du jour:

Buruma apparently has a wife and daughter -- I don't know if it's a relationship in good standing, but giving them first dibs at vetting Ghomeshi's mea culpa (absque 'culpa') would have been a stellar idea. Heck, just running it by the office fact-checker would have been a stellar idea.

It's a shame -- NYRB is a publication I've long admired, and Buruma's round in the editor's office appeared (from this distance) to be keeping its reputation on-track. But this move was so unfathomably stupid -- was perennial "poor misunderstood me" Mark David Chapman not available for a clarifying closing editorial? -- it makes Buruma's prompt sacking entirely explicable. And that's not even bringing into account Buruma's awkward attempt at defending the piece.

Paying Ghomeshi real money to address the public from a prestige platform remains a fireable offense -- this is good news.

"I don't ever want to hear his voice again." I wrote that four years ago, and my feelings have not changed one iota. And alas for the Mother Corp, my feelings of distaste and revulsion have expanded to include our national public broadcaster and many of the products they have on offer. It is curious to read this account of the post-Ghomeshi gong show and note which names associated with him and the enabling of his behaviour are still pulling in a Corporation paycheque.

I doubt I am alone in my disappointment, nor in my deliberate shift away from unqualified support of the Corp. CBC's brand, in other words, is still struggling to recover from l'affaire Ghomeshi.