Product Code Database
Mark Steyn () is a Canadian author and a radio, television, and on-line presenter. He has written several books, including The New York Times bestsellers America Alone, After America, and Broadway Babies Say Goodnight. In the US he has guest-hosted the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show, as well as Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, on which he regularly appeared as a guest and fill-in host.
In 2021, Steyn began hosting his own show on British news channel GB News. He left GB News in early February 2023, saying that the channel wanted him to pay fines issued by the UK media regulator Ofcom, which was investigating complaints of COVID-19 vaccination scepticism aired on The Mark Steyn Show. He has since moved his show to his own website.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "SteynOnline", FAQs February 14, 2007. Accessed August 24, 2008 He has stated that "the last Jewish female in my line was one of my paternal great-grandmothers" and that "both my grandmothers were Catholic". His parents were married in Elliot Lake. Steyn's great-aunt was artist Stella Steyn. His mother's family was Belgium.
Steyn was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, the same school that author J.R.R. Tolkien attended and where Steyn was assigned a Greek dictionary that had also been used by Tolkien. Although it was reported by The Age in 2006 that Steyn had left school at age 16, his name appears in the King Edward's School yearbook for 1977-78 as a member of "Cl.VI", that is, the "Classics Upper 6th form", which is the normal final year for students at that school.
He has written for many publications, including The Washington Post, The Jerusalem Post, Orange County Register, Chicago Sun-Times, National Review, The New York Sun, The Australian, Maclean's, The Irish Times, National Post, The Atlantic, Western Standard, and The New Criterion. He subsequently stepped back from writing and now devotes most of his time to his show.
Steyn's books include Broadway Babies Say Goodnight: Musicals Then and Now, a history of the musical theatre, and the political , a New York Times bestseller which predicts the downfall of the West. He has also published collections of his columns and celebrity obituaries, as well as profiles from The Atlantic.
Steyn held a Eugene C. Pulliam Visiting Fellowship in Journalism at Hillsdale College in spring 2013. As of 2010, Steyn was no longer the back-page columnist for the print edition of National Review, conservative writer James Lileks having taken over that space. Steyn's back-page column for National Review, "Happy Warriors", resumed with the issue of March 21, 2011.
Steyn has contributed to the blog Ricochet.com and recorded numerous with the organization.
From December 2016 to February 2017, Steyn hosted The Mark Steyn Show on the CRTV Digital Network. CRTV abruptly cancelled the show after two months and went to arbitration, with both sides claiming breach of contract. Steyn also sued to keep the show on the air during arbitration, saying it was on behalf of his employees. Former show supervisor Mike Young called this "bullshit" when quoted in The Daily Beast. Former employees provided sworn declarations that Steyn was "incredibly disorganised", tyrannical, and impossible to work with. Steyn was awarded damages for breach of contract, which was confirmed on appeal, as well as attorneys' fees.
In October 2021, Steyn began covering for Nigel Farage on his prime time show Farage on GB News on Fridays and was a relief presenter for Farage on other days. On November 19, 2021, Steyn received a permanent prime time host billing on GB News, with the Friday show renamed Mark Steyn. In January 2022, the show began airing five nights a week, Monday to Friday, which in February was reduced to Monday to Thursday. In March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Steyn presented the show from Western Ukraine.
In December 2022, Steyn suffered a heart attack while broadcasting the Mark Steyn Show on GB News TV. He did not recognise the symptoms as a heart attack, but later suffered a second, while in France, where he was hospitalised.
Steyn quit GB News in February 2023, in protest at the channel wanting to change his contract to make him personally liable for any fines issued by the UK's media regulator Ofcom, which was then investigating 411 complaints from viewers about Covid vaccine scepticism aired on Steyn's show, in potential breach of the Broadcasting Code. Broadcasting Code, ofcom.org.uk, accessed 27 September 2023 Steyn also complained changes in his contract would force him and his staff to attend regulatory compliance training sessions, which he referred to as "re-education classes".
On 6 March 2023, Steyn was found by Ofcom to have breached its rules during a GB News programme about COVID-19 vaccines. Ofcom said the Steyn programme had "presented a materially misleading interpretation of official data without sufficient challenge or counterweight".
In a July 2005 column for National Review, Steyn criticized Andrew Jaspan, then the editor of The Age, an Australian newspaper. Jaspan was offended by Douglas Wood, an Australian kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq, who after his rescue referred to his captors as "arseholes." Jaspan claimed that "the issue is really largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive." Steyn argued that there is nothing at all wrong with insensitivity toward murderous captors, and that it was Jaspan, not Wood, who suffered from Stockholm syndrome. He said further, "A blindfolded Mr. Wood had to listen to his captors murder two of his colleagues a few inches away, but how crude and boorish would one have to be to hold that against one's hosts?"Steyn, Mark. "A Weird Stockholm Syndrome" (subscription required) National Review, July 18, 2005.
After Black's conviction, Steyn published a long essay in Maclean's about the case, strongly criticizing Black's defense team.
Steyn believes that if mass Muslim migration to Europe is not stopped, Europe will turn into what he calls "Eurabia", a future society where the European continent will be dominated by Islam. He has written: "much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear in our lifetimes, including many, if not most Western European countries."
In his book America Alone, Steyn likened Europe to Bosnia in the lead-up to its Bosnian War and Bosnian genocide:Steyn, Mark: America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, Regnery Publishing, 2006
When some critics claimed that Steyn was advocating genocide in this passage, he wrote:Steyn, Mark: "A mass murderer-in-waiting writes", The Corner on National Review Online, February 19, 2007
Steyn has written about Muslim demographic projections to back up Bat Ye'or's Eurabia theory and has been on the board of advisors of the International Free Press Society, both key components of the international counter-jihad movement. In 2012, he also participated in the international counter-jihad conference in Brussels, billed as the "International Conference for Free Speech & Human Rights".
Should decline continue to affect peoples' lives and the expansion of debt go on, Steyn's ultimate worries are Apocalypse, with him declaring,
After America peaked at number four on the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction, but tagged with a dagger for bulk orders. Although written in a Polemic about controversial issues, praise came from publications such as The Washington Times, where Steyn received comparison to George Orwell, and The Spectator, where Steyn's sense of prose received comparison to pyrotechnics.
On August 17, 2011, Steyn discussed the book and a variety of related issues while delivering the first lecture in The NHIOP Bookmark Series, a program of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. C-SPAN recorded Steyn's comments.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission refused in April 2008 to proceed, saying it lacked jurisdiction to deal with magazine content. However, the Commission stated that it "strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims ... Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism." Critics of the Commission claimed that Maclean's and Steyn had been found guilty without a hearing. John Martin of The Province wrote, "There was no hearing, no evidence presented and no opportunity to offer a defence—just a pronouncement of wrongdoing."
The OHRC defended its right to comment by stating, "Like racial profiling and other types of discrimination, ascribing the behaviour of individuals to a group damages everyone in that group. We have always spoken out on such issues. Maclean's and its writers are free to express their opinions. The OHRC is mandated to express what it sees as unfair and harmful comment or conduct that may lead to discrimination."
Steyn subsequently criticized the Commission, commenting that "Even though they (the OHRC) don't have the guts to hear the case, they might as well find us guilty. Ingenious!"
Soon afterwards, the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission issued a public letter to the editor of Maclean's magazine. In it, Jennifer Lynch said, "Mr. Steyn would have us believe that words, however hateful, should be given . History has shown us that hateful words sometimes lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes. That is why Canada and most other democracies have enacted legislation to place reasonable limits on the expression of hatred." The National Post subsequently defended Steyn and sharply criticized Lynch, stating that Lynch has "no clear understanding of free speech or the value of protecting it" and that "No human right is more basic than freedom of expression, not even the "right" to live one's life free from offence by remarks about one's ethnicity, gender, culture or orientation."
The federal Canadian Human Rights Commission dismissed the Canadian Islamic Congress' complaint against Maclean's in June 2008. The CHRC's ruling said of the article that, "the writing is polemical, colourful and emphatic, and was obviously calculated to excite discussion and even offend certain readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike." However, the Commission ruled that overall, "the views expressed in the Steyn article, when considered as a whole and in context, are not of an extreme nature, as defined by the Supreme Court."
Steyn later wrote a lengthy reflection of his turmoil with the commissions and the tribunals. The reflection appears as the introduction to The Tyranny of Nice, a book authored by Kathy Shaidle and Pete Vere on Canada's human rights commissions.
Mann also sued the National Review and Competitive Enterprise Institute, which had published Steyn and Simberg's blog posts. In 2021 these two defendants were held not liable for defamation, and Mann was later ordered to pay $530,000 in legal expenses to the National Review.
The defamatory statements were from 2012, when Simberg accused American climatologist Mann of "deception" and "engaging in data manipulation" and alleged that the Penn State investigation that had cleared Mann was a "cover-up and whitewash" comparable to the recent Jerry Sandusky sex scandal, "except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data." The CEI blog editor then removed the sentence as "inappropriate", but a National Review blog post by Steyn cited it and alleged that Mann's hockey stick graph was "fraudulent".
Mann asked CEI and National Review to remove the allegations and apologize, or he would take action. The CEI published further insults, and National Review Editor Rich Lowry responded in an article headed "Get Lost" with a declaration that, should Mann sue, the discovery process would be used to reveal and publish Mann's emails. Mann's lawyer filed the defamation lawsuit in October 2012.
Before the case could go to discovery, CEI and National Review filed a court motion to dismiss it under anti-SLAPP legislation, with the claim that they had merely been using exaggerated language which was acceptable against a public figure. In July 2013, the judge ruled against this motion, and when the defendants took this to appeal a new judge also denied their motion to dismiss, in January 2014. National Review changed its lawyers, and Steyn decided to represent himself in court. Journalist Seth Shulman, at the Union of Concerned Scientists, welcomed the judge's statement that accusations of fraud "go to the heart of scientific integrity. They can be proven true or false. If false, they are defamatory. If made with actual malice, they are actionable."
The defendants again appealed against the decision, and on August 11, 2014, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press with 26 other organizations, including the ACLU, Bloomberg, Gannett ( USA Today), Comcast (NBCUniversal), Time, Fox News and The Seattle Times Company, filed an Amicus curiae arguing that the comments at issue were constitutionally protected as opinion.Chakraborty, Barnini . " Groups rally around think tank, publication being sued for global warming views," August 14, 2014, FoxNews.com. Retrieved December 31, 2014. The brief has been published by the RCFP. Steyn chose to be represented by attorney Daniel J. Kornstein.Kornstein, Daniel J., ", Kornstein Veisz Wexle, & Pollard LLP. Retrieved 31 December 2014. Third in the list in the notice, Mann v. National Review, et al., (Super. Ct. D.C. 2014). Represent political and cultural commentator Mark Steyn as defendant in libel suit brought by climate change scientist."
An appeal to have the lawsuit thrown out, filed by Steyn's co-defendants ( National Review, CEI and Simberg), was heard in the D.C. Court of Appeals on November 25, 2014. Steyn was present for oral arguments but did not join the appeal, preferring to go to trial. On December 22, 2016, the D.C. appeals court ruled that Mann's case against Simberg and Steyn could go ahead. A "reasonable jury" could find against the defendants, and though the context should be considered, "if the statements assert or imply false facts that defame the individual, they do not find shelter under the First Amendment simply because they are embedded in a larger policy debate.". A counterclaim Steyn filed through his attorneys on March 17, 2014, was dismissed with prejudice by the D.C. court on August 29, 2019, leaving Steyn to pay litigation costs. – August 29th, 2019: Order Granting Motion to Dismiss the Counterclaims of Counter-Plaintiff Steyn
The defendants filed for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the hope it would hear their appeal. On November 25, 2019, it denied the petition without comment. In a dissenting opinion, associate justice Samuel Alito wrote that he had favored hearing the case on the basis that, even though the defendants might yet prevail in the case or the outcome itself come before the Court for review, the expense of litigating the case this far may itself have a chilling effect which would deter speakers. Mann said that he looked forward to the trial.
On February 8, 2024, after a jury trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, each of the co-defendants Simberg and Steyn was ordered to pay Mann $1 in compensatory damages. Mann was awarded $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn. Steyn, who had self-represented, said through his manager he would be appealing the punitive damages, as did Simberg, through his lawyer.
Regarding the one dollar compensatory damage award, Steyn indicated it vindicated his belief that Mann never suffered any actual injury. The two writers had argued during the trial that Mann become famous in the years after their remarks.
In 2025 a D.C. Superior Court judge reduced the Steyn punitive damages payment to $5000. Law commentator Eugene Volokh wrote that the court did not disagree with the jury verdict that Steyn had libeled Mann through reckless and knowingly false statements. The court based the new figure on precedents and the actual damages to Dr. Mann.
Susan Catto in Time believed Steyn had an interest in controversy: "Instead of shying away from the appearance of conflict, Steyn positively revels in it."Catto, Susan: "Canada's Conrad Black Controversy" Time, June 27, 2007 Canadian journalist Steve Burgess wrote: "Steyn wields his rhetorical rapier with genuine skill" and that national disasters tended to cause Steyn "to display his inner wingnut."Steve Burgess: "Mark Steyn's Latest Victims" Mediacheck, thetyee.ca April 24, 2007/
In 2009, Canadian journalist Paul Wells accused Steyn of dramatically exaggerating the rise of fascist political parties in Europe. Wells also accused Steyn of repeatedly "shrieking" about Islam in his political writings.
Steyn has also received awards from the Claremont Institute in 2005, the Center for Security Policy in 2007, the International Free Press Society in 2010, and the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms in 2018.
Legal issues
Canadian Islamic Congress human rights complaint
In 2007, a complaint was filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission related to Steyn's article, entitled "The Future Belongs to Islam", published in Maclean's magazine. The complainants alleged that the article and the refusal of Maclean's to provide space for a rebuttal violated their human rights. The complainants also claimed that the article was one of twenty-two (22) Maclean's articles, many written by Steyn, about Muslims.
Statement on Decision in Maclean's Cases, Ontario Human Rights Commission. April 9, 2008 Further complaints were filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, later stripped of its mandate by the Canadian parliament in 2011, and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
Defamation lawsuit
In February 2024, a civil trial jury in Washington found that Mark Steyn and Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) blogger Rand Simberg defamed and injured climatologist Michael E. Mann in blog posts. The jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each writer. It awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn, after finding that the pair made their statements with "maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm." In 2025 the D.C. Superior court reduced the Steyn punitive damages payment to $5000, based in part on the discrepancy with the compensatory damages.
Critical reception
Steyn's writing has drawn supporters and detractors for both content and style. Martin Amis, who was harshly criticized in America Alone but gave it a positive review, said of the style: "Mark Steyn is an oddity: his thoughts and themes are sane and serious—but he writes like a maniac." His style was described by Robert Fulford as "bringing to public affairs the dark comedy developed in the Theatre of the Absurd."Fulford, Robert "Mark Steyn, opinionmonger" robertfulford.com (Published by National Post, November 19, 2005) Longtime editor and admirer Fulford also wrote, "Steyn, a self-styled 'right-wing bastard,' violates everyone's sense of good taste." According to Simon Mann, Steyn "gives succour to the maxim the pen is mightier than the sword, though he is not averse to employing the former to advocate use of the latter."Mann, Simon: "A critic proud to quote his critics" theage.com August 19, 2006. Retrieved June 11, 2008. Dan Kennedy, professor of journalism at North Eastern University, has described Steyn's journalistic technique as "write, twist, smear and sneer, repeat!" Charlie Pierce told the Boston Phoenix in 2004 that "If a guy who is that nakedly, intellectually dishonest can become a successful conservative writer, then conservative intellectualism is dead in this country. If it began with Buckley and the people who taught him, it ends with the likes of Mark Steyn."
Awards
Steyn was awarded the 2006 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism for writing which "best reflects love of this country and its democratic institutions".
Personal life
Steyn lives and works mainly in Woodsville, New Hampshire, U.S. He has three children.
Bibliography
See also
Notes
External links
Categories: Official Website, Living People, 21st-century Canadian Male Writers, 21st-century Canadian Non-fiction Writers, Activists From Toronto, Canadian Anglicans, Canadian Columnists, Canadian Critics Of Islam, Canadian Expatriate Writers In The United States, Canadian Expatriates In The United Kingdom, Canadian Film Critics, Canadian Free Speech Activists, Canadian Male Non-fiction Writers, Canadian Music Critics, Canadian People Of Belgian Descent, Canadian People Of Lithuanian-jewish Descent, Canadian Roman Catholics, Conservatism In Canada, Conservatism In The United Kingdom, Counter-jihad Activists, English People Of Belgian Descent, Eurabia, Gb News Newsreaders And Journalists, Hillsdale College Faculty, Maclean's Writers And Editors, National Post People, National Review People, People Educated At King Edward's School, Birmingham, People From Woodsville, New Hampshire, Writers From New Hampshire, Writers From Toronto
|
|
