Toronto Star media critic Antonia Zerbisias criticized this blog in her column today about the Star’s coverage of the Canadian terror bust. As you might recall, I praised the Star yesterday in this post:

The Star not only provided the most in-depth coverage of the thwarted attack, but also its city columnist Rosie DiManno produced the most unflinchingly candid assessment of the discovery and its implications. Well done.

Later, after getting a thought-provoking e-mail from a reader, I added the following update:

UPDATE: F.P.R. writes:
I am sure many Canadian readers are already telling you this but the Toronto Star is easily the most left wing major media outlet in a country full of left wing media. It could be argued that their constant support for multiculturalism and their soft on terror and crime views provided conditions favorable for these home grown terrorists to develop. It is therefore highly ironic that their strong crime beat is leading the coverage on this story, as there is not a more politically correct media outlet in the country.Cori Dauber made this same point earlier at Rantingprofs. This is a triumph of beat reporting over political correctness.

Here is how Zerbisias characterized the post:

South of the border, the neocon bible National Review had these words on its blog: “(T)he Toronto Star is easily the most left wing major media outlet in a country full of left wing media. It could be argued that their constant support for multiculturalism and their soft on terror and crime views provided conditions favorable for these home grown terrorists to develop. It is therefore highly ironic that their strong crime beat is leading the coverage on this story, as there is not a more politically correct media outlet in the country.”
The wing nuts are so right they can’t even admit to ever being wrong.
What nailed this story is a dogged reporter pounding a beat, a paper investing time and resources on good old-fashioned journalism — something on which the corporate media, and the bloggers who attack them, can’t, or won’t, spend.

I really don’t even know how to respond to this, but I can start by pointing out that Zerbisias clearly meant to imply that someone at National Review wrote those words, which is not the case. Second, my reader merely pointed out that it is ironic that the “strong crime beat” at the Star uncovered a stunning reality that flies in the face of the paper’s PC ideology. What was he so wrong about that he now cannot bear to admit his error?

Zerbisias does not say. Instead, she just repeats the point I made myself, which is that this was a triumph of beat reporting. She throws in a few cliched swipes at the “corporate media” and “bloggers who attack them,” as if this follows from anything I posted. This is in keeping with the character of Zerbisias’s piece, which is a string of non-sequiturs beginning with a bit of cheerleading for the Toronto Star for breaking the story, then urging us to ignore the obvious connection among the suspects, and finally attacking the “rightwingdingosphere” for having the temerity to connect the dots. I believe that’s precisely the irony to which my reader was referring.

UPDATE: I forgot to link to the column earlier. You can read it here.