Tag: journalism

10,883 words

Frédéric Saenen
Léon Degrelle
Paris: Perrin, 2025

Years ago, in the pages of his own publication, Spearhead, John Tyndall, then leader of Britain’s National Front, wrote approvingly that in Europe in the 1930’s “strong men came forward” to restore authority and a sense of purpose to their respective nations. It was a euphemistic but accurate characterization of the nationalist leaders after the Great War who radically opposed both Western parliamentary democracy and Bolshevism and who are loosely classified as fascists. (more…)

Mick Jagger and William Rees-Mogg

3,725 words

In February of 1967, two men were arrested in Sussex, England, on drug-related offences. They were not politicians or members of the Royal Family, but their cultural status in the Britain of the “Swinging Sixties” made the resulting media coverage feverish. The young men, both aged 23, were a new type of upstart aristocracy, social arrivistes in a country built on tradition and privilege. They were also possibly the first male defendants in a high-profile court case whose outfits in the dock were the subject of media pieces, at least since they tried Oscar Wilde. (more…)

1,394 words

In its recent article titled “Harvard author Steven Pinker appears on podcast linked to scientific racism”, The Guardian offers a textbook example of what passes for journalism in our era of moralised media. (more…)

2,828 words

And they’ve all gone to look for America.
Simon & Garfunkel

***

Those of us who are not American but have an interest in the state of Western culture have of necessity spent a great deal of time trying to understand Americans. (more…)

Elle Reeve in 2022. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

2,233 words

Elle Reeve
Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2024

Elle Reeve made a career covering the “Alt Right,” its precursors, and its aftermath, including the Charlottesville trials and January 6, first for Vice and then for CNN. Black Pill is a memoir of her time on the Alt Right beat. (more…)

Harmonie London

2,006 words

Delivery for Airstrip One!

America and Great Britain were trading together long before Sir Winston Churchill minted the phrase “special relationship” to describe the transatlantic accord. (It wasn’t Reagan or Thatcher who came up with that one, as is commonly supposed; they just pulled the term out of mothballs). Some American imports were and still are loved in Britain: pre-woke Hollywood, jazz, the great American novel, actually preparing food rather than just killing it and eating it with mushy vegetables. The list is extensive. (more…)

3,447 words

Paul Fussell
Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War
New York: Oxford University Press, 1989

Most readers know Paul Fussell from his satiric Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, which, intended as a humorous study of American mores, has been accepted as a legitimate guideline to what H. L. Mencken called Boobis americanus. (more…)

3,871 words

According to legend, an independent, truthful, and unbiased press is a vital pillar of democracy. There’s a certain mystique about intrepid journalists facing the night and storm in their trench coats and fedoras, out to fight corruption and bring the powerful to heel, armed only with their pens and notepads. Their aim was nothing but the truth: “Just the facts, Ma’am.” (more…)

1,525 words

If Holden Caulfield did battle with the phonies, Howie Carr does it with hacks. Howie is a Boston journalist whose mischievous face is a combination of Jimmy Cagney and Mephistopheles, offering Irish bravado and tempting the reader, listener, or viewer — he’s done his act for all three — to see the facts and get angry. In Paper Boy, Howie’s memoir, there’s a lot to get angry about, but almost every page bristles with laugh-out-loud moments. (more…)

1,949 words

All the world’s a stage. — William Shakespeare, As You Like It

This is not journalism, it’s performance art. — FOX News contributor Kat Timpf on pre-approved questions at a Biden press conference

In the old days of print journalism, the importance of a story was not measured in retweets, trending, uploads, shares, likes, or views, but rather in “column inches.” This is self-explanatory, but is also indicative of the fact that journalistic coverage in the print era was a zero-sum game. That is, the more column inches are devoted to story A, the fewer there are available for story B. (more…)

3,242 words

Deborah Cohen
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial:
The Reporters who Took on a World at War
New York: Random House, 2022 (more…)

Recently-published private correspondence by Matt Hancock, who was the UK’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the Covid lockdowns, reveals that he encouraged the government to “frighten” the public into submission to the measures, and that he found the requirement for travelers to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival “hilarious,” among other revelations.

2,718 words

The story is not about me, and actually it isn’t about Matt Hancock as an individual. The story is about collateral damage. — Isabel Oakeshott, English journalist

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. — Fleetwood Mac

If there is one lesson to be learned from the recent Covid pandemic, it is that British public opinion is as dirigible as a child’s party balloon on a string. Just as when someone in a crowd looks fixedly up to the sky, followed by the chap next to him, repeated by the family next to him, until finally everyone is looking up at nothing, classic crowd psychology also applies to information. Divert the attention of a few, and you will get everyone’s attention, like aquarium fish following the alpha. (more…)

Brett, aka Brianna (last name unknown)

1,531 words

Last Saturday afternoon at a public park east of Manchester in northern England, a 16-year-old male whose first name at birth was “Brett” died from multiple stab wounds. I don’t know Brett’s legal surname at the moment, because the press has refrained from reporting it.

At some point — from what I am able to infer from news reports, it was less than a year ago — Brett decided that his name was “Brianna” and declared that he was a female rather than a male. (more…)