Margaret Atwood’s Column is “Toupee Much” for National Post
Famed Canadian author Margaret Atwood had her own recent experience with being censored after a tongue-in-cheek column she wrote for National Post was taken down on Friday.
The column poked fun at the Conservative’s campaign commercials' flippant remarks about Justin Trudeau’s nice hair. “Hair, an election issue? Really?” Atwood wrote, before going on to criticize Harper’s recent track record.
The column had originally been published at 2pm on Friday but by later that afternoon, the piece had mysteriously vanished from the website.
The author of The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian work about censorship and opporession, noted the sudden disappearance of her column and queried the National Post’s withdrawal via Twitter:
The article reappeared - with edits - just as suddenly later Friday night. Three sentences referring to Harper’s political donations and a recent travel expenses scandal were removed. Postmedia’s Vice President, Gerry Nott, weighed in with the paper’s official statement.
“The column was taken down because the necessary fact checking had not been completed,” Nott said. “Senior editorial leadership at Postmedia also had not concluded whether the column was aligned with the values of theNational Postand its readers.”
Atwood did not receive the republished column well, stating the piece had been submitted nine days beforehand and could have been vetted during that time. She took to Twitter and asked the National Post, “Which of my facts were Wrong? What are the alternate facts, presumably Right? Cite sources please.”
Twiiter's #Hairgate did spur an outpouring of support for Atwood following the incident. She thanked her fans for the punny tweets that continued to stream through into the weekend.
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