Category Archives: Journalism

Updated: Christmas Appeal

Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Journalism

My mother was saying, “Do you remember the post you wrote in May of 2006 titled ‘Holland Keeps Afloat; Why Can’t New Orleans?’? Well, Time magazine has finally caught up with you. In November of 2009, Time ran an article with a similar theme.”

IlanaMercer.com, a one-woman outfit, is generally ahead of the game and the pack—sometimes years in-the-lead. Why are ilanamercer.com and the companion site Barely A Blog such good causes? If you don’t already know, do read “Why Support ilanamercer.com” for but a few of the reasons. Or spend some time burrowing in the archives of BAB and ilanamercer.com.

Times are hard, but if you value the commentary and the community on this space; if you appreciate the time I spend in crafting daily, original, topical commentary, keeping the Comments Forum open for your venting; responding to Comments, and ensuring exchanges remain civil and grammatical—please consider showing your appreciation.

I’m afraid BAB will be closed to comments for now until, well, I can be assured that the time devoted to moderating this well-supervised, interactive, labor-intense forum is time well-spent.

Thank you for your generosity (my homie, T. Cup, says hi).

Merry Christmas and a happy Hanukah,
ILANA













Hanging with mom

Update (Dec. 14): Bar those few faithful souls whose commitment to my causes I appreciate more than they know, I’m afraid the response to our Christmas appeal has been poor.

Those of you who have my P.O. Box are welcome to use it (and keep it private).

What are you supporting? A marginalized voice that beats most well-funded group thinkers out there in coverage and commentary.

On the topic of those fattened collectivists: Neil Cavuto has begun, lately (on December 11, 2009, to be precise), to cover the discrepancy between the respective incomes of workers employed in the private vs. the parasitical sector. Cavuto got his column “idea” from USA-Today data.

I beat both entities to it.

Let’s see, when was my “Life in the Oink Sector” written? September 25, 2009. That column was cited by the New York Times’ “Economix” blog. Needless to say, the Times would have never ever bothered to apprise its readers of the cost “of these pampered pigs”:

“There are upward of 20 million of these pampered pigs, hogging 87,000 different institutions in government and public education, where the payrolls are always lard-laden in comparison to private-economy paysheets.”

Ultimately, what neither the Times nor Cavuto will ever do for you is speak to the economic-cum-moral principles that differentiate the voluntary sector from the work force that uses FORCE to keep itself larded up.

Updated: What? Southern Rubes Aren’t Racists After All?

Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Propaganda, Race, Racism

The excerpt is from my new, WND.COM column, “What? Southern Rubes Aren’t Racists After All?”:

“… It is one thing for a starlet like Janeane Garofalo to defame tea party attendees as ‘a bunch of teabagging rednecks,’ and accuse men and women she knows nothing about of ‘hating a black man in the White House,’ and harboring unadulterated racism. It’s quite another matter for cable-network anchors to parrot the loopy lady’s lines.

Nevertheless, ape they did.

So it was that thought-crime investigator Keith Olbermann broke news on his MSNBC nightly show. With his most solemn, commissar-like countenance, Keith informed his viewers, matter-of-fact, that the intensity of the animosity toward Barack Obama is based on his being a black man. …

No wonder, then, that the malign men and women of MSNBC pointedly failed to report conclusive findings to the contrary.

A progressive research group—among whose stars is Democratic political consultant and prominent clintonista (now Obamaniac) James Carville—discovered that when it comes to their assumptions about older, white, Southern Republicans, the cable quislings had been wrong all along. …”

The complete column is “What? Southern Rubes Aren’t Racists After All?” Miss the weekly column on WND.COM? Be sure to catch it on Taki’s Magazine on the weekend.

Update: (Nov. 6) HOLLYWOOD’S HATEFUL HOOEY ABOUT THE SOUTH is not limited to HOLLYWOOD’S. Many Southerners have internalized the stereotype.

Updated: What? Southern Rubes Aren't Racists After All?

Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Propaganda, Race, Racism

The excerpt is from my new, WND.COM column, “What? Southern Rubes Aren’t Racists After All?”:

“… It is one thing for a starlet like Janeane Garofalo to defame tea party attendees as ‘a bunch of teabagging rednecks,’ and accuse men and women she knows nothing about of ‘hating a black man in the White House,’ and harboring unadulterated racism. It’s quite another matter for cable-network anchors to parrot the loopy lady’s lines.

Nevertheless, ape they did.

So it was that thought-crime investigator Keith Olbermann broke news on his MSNBC nightly show. With his most solemn, commissar-like countenance, Keith informed his viewers, matter-of-fact, that the intensity of the animosity toward Barack Obama is based on his being a black man. …

No wonder, then, that the malign men and women of MSNBC pointedly failed to report conclusive findings to the contrary.

A progressive research group—among whose stars is Democratic political consultant and prominent clintonista (now Obamaniac) James Carville—discovered that when it comes to their assumptions about older, white, Southern Republicans, the cable quislings had been wrong all along. …”

The complete column is “What? Southern Rubes Aren’t Racists After All?” Miss the weekly column on WND.COM? Be sure to catch it on Taki’s Magazine on the weekend.

Update: (Nov. 6) HOLLYWOOD’S HATEFUL HOOEY ABOUT THE SOUTH is not limited to HOLLYWOOD’S. Many Southerners have internalized the stereotype.

Kvetch Cable

Feminism, Gender, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Neoconservatism

CNN anchor Campbell Brown tries here to parlay into a CNN advantage a valid point about the Fox News-White House tiff. She does not convince. While MSNBC most certainly does not do neutral news—and Brown and her CNN buddies are not blatantly biased—the CNN message seeps through via a steady stream of soporific, soft-news stories, to say nothing of the reign of the King of Kvetch, Anderson Cooper.

Mercifully, Brown et al. don’t engage in straightforward opinion, but their unadulterated leftism—not to mention hard-core statism—creeps into reports by way of story selection, slant, and facial grimaces. Examples are punishing programs such “Black, Blue, Brown, and plain Bored in America.”

Call it the CNN meta-message.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting interlude:

Over to Brown:

Videotape: Brown: officials have been very public about their feelings about fox news and what they believe fox news is and represents and they made a point of coming out and saying it.

Jarrett: that’s a different issue. What we’re saying is that we want the public to understand what’s going on. When we saw the kind of distortions this summer, particularly directed at seniors, over health care reform, it was really outrageous.

And I think what the president said in his message before congress is we’re going to speak directly to the American people and make sure that they understand the truth.

And so, certainly, if we see somebody distorting the truth, we’re going to call them on the carpet for that. But we don’t want to take our focus away from the core issues that are so important to the American people. Now, when there’s all that chatter and distortion and false information, we have to disseminate — we have to distinguish between truth and fiction.

Brown: so do you think fox news is biased?

Jarrett: well, of course they’re biased. Of course they are.

Brown: do you also think that MSNBC is biased?

Jarrett: well, you know what, this is the thing. I don’t want to — actually, I don’t want to just generalize all fox is biased or another station is biased. I think what we want to do is look at it on a case-by-case basis. And when we see a pattern of distortion, we’re going to be honest about that pattern of distortion.

Brown: but you only see that at fox news. That’s all — that you’ve spoken out about, fox.

Jarrett: what the administration has said very clearly is that we’re going to speak truth to power.

When we saw all the distortions during the course of the summer. When people were coming down to town hall meetings and putting up signs that were scaring seniors to death. When we’ve seen commercials go up on television that were distorting the truth, we’re actually calling everybody out.

This isn’t something that’s directed at fox. We want the American people to have a clear understanding, there’s so much at stake right now. We really don’t have a lot of time for nonsense and distortions.

The American people are also smarter than that. Let them reach their own judgments based on the facts. Let’s just take health care, for example. Reasonable people could differ about the right approach. So let’s have a conversation about that. Let’s not scare people by telling them that things are going to happen that are actually not even on the table. Let’s just talk about the facts. (end clip)

Brown: so, I am stating what I think is the obvious here. Jarrett seems loathe to admit that MSNBC has a bias. And that is where I think the white house loses all credibility on this issue.

Just as fox news leans to the right with their opinionated hosts in primetime, MSNBC leans left. I don’t think anyone at fox or MSNBC would disagree with that. In fact, both fox news and MSNBC are….