Category Archives: Journalism

NEW COLUMN Updated (1/21): Dissident Deplorables Refuse To Be Dittoheads

Critique, Donald Trump, Elections, English, Family, Journalism, Media, Political Correctness

NEW COLUMN is “Dissident Deplorables Refuse To Be Dittoheads.”

In its attenuated form, the column appeared on Townhall.com. If you prefer lukewarm, milquetoast, bland fare (as much as this writer can do those), adapted for conservative tastes, then stick with this version: “Dissident Deplorables Deserve Decent Coverage.”

Otherwise, read the piece in full on The Unz Review.  Or, look-away, FAST (as did others. Yes, the piece was spiked elsewhere).  The more I read Mencken, the more I know this: If he were alive today, Unz Review woudl be the only place that would dare publish him.

Excerpt:

The happening featured beefcake Donald Trump Jr. and bimbo Kimberly Guilfoyle.

The couple was on stage at UCLA to promote the president’s son’s “book,” when they were jeered by dissident Deplorables for shutting down the Question-and-Answer segment.

“Book” here is in quotations to denote “so-called,” because the staple, ghost-written political pablum, penned by ambitious political flotsam, relates to literacy as H. L. Mencken relates to conformity—not at all.

Predictably, Guilfoyle opted out of the conversational give-and-take demanded by her man’s hecklers, and went straight for the groin:

“I bet you engage in online dating, because you’re impressing no one here to get a date in person.”

Why “predictably”? Well, a supple mind may not be one of Guilfoyle’s assets.

Kimberley’s cerebral alacrity was seldom showcased when seated in Fox News’ legs chair. During one of her last televised appearances on “The Five,” a Fox News daytime show, Guilfoyle protested that, “the U.S. has already reduced its [toxic] ‘admissions’ enough.”

I give you Guilfoyle, verbatim, in her own words: “So, we can keep doing what we’re doing. We can keep reducing our admissions. …”

To Make English Great Again, you reduce emissions, not “admissions.”

For a while, it even seemed that Trump, looking for curve appeal in a press secretary, was going for Guilfoyle. She certainly thought so and said as much, implying, at the time, that she herself is “a great communicator … with deep knowledge.”

And no; I do not digress. This all goes to the Guilfoyle’s knee-jerk, flirty, aim-for-the-groin reaction to her hombre’s hecklers.

Tellingly, the taunting of Donald Jr. by dissident Deplorables was covered very differently by the American Daily Beast and the British Guardian.

Descriptions of political positions and personalities were prefaced by the Daily Beast with “edifying” editorializing. The hecklers the Beast described as “fringe-right.” Their alleged instigator and inspiration was said to be “a white nationalist.” Perfectly legitimate demands from this disgruntled audience for a “Q&A” and for “America First,” the Daily Beast deemed tantamount to a right-wing insurrection or civil war.

Discrediting dissent is all in a day’s work for the American press.

What do you know? The hecklers at Trump Jr.’s book-flogging were also known, to the Daily Beast at least, as “Holocaust deniers.” As far as this reader can tell, the group taunting the empty suits on stage for refusing to answer questions had said not a word about the Holocaust. Nor had the disrupters been interviewed by the Daily Beast about their views on the Holocaust.

More to the point: Why is participation in our democracy predicated on one’s views on the Holocaust? What the hell does an individual’s opinion about that topic have to do with his right to solicit answers from members of Donald Trump’s politically active dynasty? I say this as a Jew whose family tree was truncated by the industrial-scale mass murder of millions of Jews that was the Holocaust. …

… READS THE REST.  NEW COLUMN is “Dissident Deplorables Refuse To Be Dittoheads.” Or, “Dissident Deplorables Deserve Decent Coverage,” if you can’t take the heat. 

UPDATE (11/21): 

On WND: “Is political participation predicated on views about the Holocaust?” “Discrediting dissent is all in a day’s work for the American press,” says this Jew, whose family tree was truncated by the industrial-scale mass murder that was the Holocaust. MORE …

The Daily Northwestern, A Newspaper, Says ‘No’ To Journalism

English, Free Speech, Journalism, Kids, Media

Woke journalism puts feelings before facts.

The background to the latest campus snowflake storm comes straight from the horse’s mouth (with apologies to horses). Writes The Daily Northwestern (in crappy English and style):

former Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke on campus at a Northwestern University College Republicans event. The Daily sent a reporter to cover that talk and another to cover the students protesting his invitation to campus, along with a photographer.

We recognize that we contributed to the harm students experienced, and we wanted to apologize for and address the mistakes that we made that night — along with how we plan to move forward.

One area of our reporting that harmed many students was our photo coverage of the event. Some protesters found photos posted to reporters’ Twitter accounts retraumatizing and invasive. Those photos have since been taken down. On one hand, as the paper of record for Northwestern, we want to ensure students, administrators and alumni understand the gravity of the events that took place Tuesday night. However, we decided to prioritize the trust and safety of students who were photographed. We feel that covering traumatic events requires a different response than many other stories. While our goal is to document history and spread information, nothing is more important than ensuring that our fellow students feel safe — and in situations like this, that they are benefitting from our coverage rather than being actively harmed by it. We failed to do that last week, and we could not be more sorry [SIC]

And so it goes. If only this tinny denunciation of basic journalistic practices was, at least, written with some flare.

MORE of the mea culpa:Addressing The Daily’s coverage of Sessions protests.”

By Blowing A Hole In Fox News, President Trump Does Deplorables A Tremendous Favor

Conservatism, Donald Trump, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Journalism, Media, Nationalism, Republicans

With the exception of Tucker Carlson, who is a national treasure, Fox News has always been a mouthpiece of establishment Republicanism. This translates into the promotion of corporate cronyism and Koch-oriented views, a wishy-washy, shallow perspective on mass, unfettered immigration; capitulation to the forces of feminism and militarism; flippancy about nationalism, the natural world, as well as about all matters racial.

My own book of Trump, “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” (June 29, 2016), elaborated on and praised The Process of Trump. It’s not so much what the president says, but how Trump, a political Samson, has pried open the American establishment for all to see, ugly entrails and all.

Fox News is establishment. Via The Hill:

Trump lashed out in a trio of tweets after a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) appeared on “America’s Newsroom.” The president cited her interview; the employment of former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile; Juan Williams, who is also a columnist for The Hill; and anchor Shepard Smith to claim the network is biased against him.

“Just watched @FoxNews heavily promoting the Democrats through their DNC Communications Director, spewing out whatever she wanted with zero pushback by anchor, @SandraSmithFox. Terrible considering that Fox couldn’t even land a debate, the Dems give them NOTHING!” Trump tweeted.

Trump blasted the network as “HOPELESS & CLUELESS” for hiring Brazile, Williams and Smith, each of whom have criticized the president at various times.

“They should go all the way LEFT and I will still find a way to Win — That’s what I do, Win. Too Bad!” Trump continued. “I don’t want to Win for myself, I only want to Win for the people. The New
@FoxNews is letting millions of GREAT people down! We have to start looking for a new News Outlet. Fox isn’t working for us anymore!”

NEW COLUMN: Lara Logan: ‘Conservative’ Media’s Latest Blond Ambition

Celebrity, Conservatism, Critique, Gender, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

NEW COLUMN is “Lara Logan: ‘Conservative’ Media’s Latest Blond Ambition.” It’s currently on WND.COM and The Unz Review.

An excerpt:

In 2018, Lara Logan left her perch as foreign correspondent for CBS’s “highest-rated, most profitable and best-known program, ‘60 Minutes.’”

She is currently doing the rounds, assuaging “conservative” media’s appetite for celebrity. The latter have a Uriah-Heep like propensity to fawn over swamp-based, defecting, big-name media celebs.

It’s as though Logan is job hunting, on a blond-ambition tour—for she certainly has no news to impart other than a few banal catchphrases. Logan has “revealed,” first to Breitbart podcaster Mike Ritland, that—OMG! —the media are “mostly liberal.”

Yes, Logan has been pontificating about the tritest of truths: the media are liberal.

Ever in search of defecting celebrities around whom to create buzz, the pack dogs of “conservative” media picked up Logan’s scent and gave chase. Mission accomplished.

In a lovey-dovey, public tête-à-tête, Fox News’ Sean Hannity hinted to his higherups at Fox that they should hire Logan. One wishes they’d do this self-congratulatory cable-news porn behind closed doors. Like we don’t already suffer an abundance of Fake News, No-News and salacious news.

Most remarkable was how quick cons were to decorate Logan with a journalistic purple heart for stating-the-obvious-while-filthy-rich—“a hero, she’s committing professional suicide” went their hyperbole.

Again: Logan left CBS in 2018. She always ran with the intellectual herd. It’s now time to reinvent herself after, likely, blowing up one too many roads.

Is it not obvious that Logan is hoping to fill Megyn Kelly’s stilettoes at Fox News? For there is no way in which she could aspire to emulate old-school journalists like Sharyl Attkisson and Sarah Carter for whom Logan offered plaudits on “Hannity.”

Indeed, it would appear that Logan’s blond-ambition tour is to make herself over in the image of women reporters who’ve always embodied a conservative ethos by doing their work with great refinement. For Attkisson and Carter, it’s about the story; not the cleavage.

Not so with Logan, whose career has been marred by a showy exhibitionism as good as Kelly’s—except that Logan is far and away the less brainy of the two celebrity journalists and the more scandal prone (not that scandal would deter “conservatives,” who’ve practically capitulated to the elastic moral standards of the liberals).

In 2008, the former swimwear model made headlines for her role as … “home-wrecker.” Logan had become embroiled in an affair with a married man, while carrying on simultaneously with talented war correspondent Michael Ware (“just a one-night stand”). Her CBS  employers knew the drill: They relocated their wayward correspondent from Baghdad to Washington.

As implied, “the drill” had been rehearsed …

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN, “Lara Logan: ‘Conservative’ Media’s Latest Blond Ambition,” is currently on WND.COM and The Unz Review.

UPDATE (2/22):

About the Lara Logan expose, Bill Meyer, brilliant radio man out of Oregon, commented at WND (scroll down): "Ilana, THIS…

Posted by Ilana Mercer on Friday, February 22, 2019