Remembering Two Special Readers
As I was saying…
With apologies to the late Jack Paar, who uttered those words his first night back as host of the old “Tonight Show” after a three-week absence in 1960, the Monitor returns this week after its own little hiatus.
Our Uncle Tom Strikes Again
Thomas Friedman, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist, proved once again last week that despite his non-stop insistence that he has Israel’s best interests at heart, he relishes nothing more than slinging mud at Israel and its most vocal American supporters.
Arafat Has A Friend At Harper’s
Harper's, the literary magazine founded in 1850 and celebrated in its early years for featuring the works of Herman Melville, Henry James and Mark Twain, has for most of its history been an insomniac's delight - a snooze-inducing bore found mainly in the waiting rooms of doctors who hope to impress patients with a little bit of culture-by-association.
Reading The Mail
The Monitor usually answers letters and e-mails privately, but sometimes a public response seems more appropriate, as the following three queries illustrate.
Most Biased Network Of All
Still dining out on the praise it garnered during the Gulf War a long decade ago, CNN (derided in its formative years as the 'Chicken Noodle Network' for its then ticky-tacky image and more recently as the 'Clinton News Network' for its unabashed infatuation with the former president) has for some time now been arguably the nation's most overrated news outlet.
Good To Wrap Fish In
There's a certain maxim among media critics (and if there isn't, the Monitor just coined it) that goes like this: If all seems right in the world of journalism, you probably haven't opened up that day's New York Times.
Notes On A Pair Of Pinheads
Would it be a tad tasteless for the Monitor to break into a hearty chorus of 'Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead' at the welcome news that Deborah Sontag is soon to vacate her post as New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief?
American Jewry’s New Religion
Rabbi Daniel Lapin has this rather refreshing habit of going against the Jewish establishment's liberal grain. He's also quite obviously unafraid of taking on even the most cherished folkways of American Jewry, perhaps most notably its obsession with the Holocaust - an obsession he views as nothing less than detrimental to the spiritual health of the community.
Enemies List 2001 (Part II)
Last week's listing of Israel's worst media enemies, as determined by readers of the Monitor, generated the kind of pro-and-con response such lists usually do. This week we're featuring some of the nominations that failed to garner enough mentions to make the list, but which are interesting (and in most cases valid) in their own right.
Handy Media Directory
In response to a number of requests, the Monitor has put together the following directory of major media outlets for quick reference. Whether you communicate with their offices via telephone, fax or e-mail, it's never been easier to let editors and reporters know what's on your mind. There's no excuse for inaction.
More Reaction To Enemies List
The letters just keep coming in response to the Enemies List column and its follow-up. The responses by and large have been friendly in tone, with the majority of respondents agreeing on all or most of the names submitted by their fellow readers. And then there was this, from an e-mail submitted by some mammal identified as Rashid Monsour:
Two Surprises And A Pinhead
The bombing of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria leaves the Monitor no choice but to again shelve a good-riddance, tribute-in-reverse obituary for an incomparably odious Jew whose stay of Judgment was at long last revoked early last month.
The Palestinians’ Gal At The New York Times
Yes, another Monitor on The New York Times - and if you don't understand why the Times warrants constant scrutiny, you probably shouldn?t be reading this column to begin with.
Spanking The Saudis
The Monitor will return next week to compiling some of the more outrageous anti-U.S. and anti-Israel statements made by prominent leftists in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist atrocities. This week, however, attention must be paid to a welcome and long overdue media phenomenon: the roughing up, by an array of pundits who have replaced their rubber gloves with brass knuckles, of the always duplicitous Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Kill This Myth
It's been raining rumor and myth since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. And though most of the so-called urban legends that now abound on the Internet and even make an appearance or two in mainstream news outlets are easily dispelled by their very outlandishness, there are some that just won't go away.
The Left Gears Up For Battle: The Norman And Howard Show
More looniness to report this week from our friends on the left, who since Sept. 11 have put to rest the notion that their habitual opposition to virtually any U.S. military action would dissipate the moment the country came under actual attack from a foreign enemy.
Three Stooges Named Jennings, Gumbel And Hamill
"Peter Jennings, Palestinian sympathizer first, journalist second?" is how the conservative Media Research Center (MRC) put it in its CyberAlert of Dec. 4. "Israel," the alert went on, "was the victim of a murderous terrorist attack by a terrorist group, Hamas, which claimed credit.
Reading The Mail
Readers might find the following items from the Monitor's mailbag to be of some interest. (The Monitor responds privately to all e-mails and letters, but every now and then selects a few for public viewing.)
The Best And The Brightest
Every year at this time the conservative Media Research Center compiles the most outrageously biased and stupefyingly dumb remarks made by media people during the previous 12 months. Even the quickest perusal of these gems should forever still any doubts about the media's inherent liberal bias and stupefying shallowness.
Still Wrong About Rudy After All These Years (Part I)
The New York Times has always had a difficult time understanding, let alone embracing, Rudolph Giuliani. From his first mayoral race - the losing effort against David Dinkins in 1989 - through his victory four years later and the wildly successful two terms in office that followed, Giuliani was treated by the Times with varying degrees of skepticism, condescension, moral outrage and, on occasion, admiration that might charitably have been described as grudging had it not been delivered with the obligatory qualifiers and negative asides the paper reserves these days for George W. Bush.
Still Wrong About Rudy After All These Years (Part II)
As was remarked upon here last week, The New York Times has for the past eight years been what can best be described as maddeningly ambivalent, when it hasn't been fighting mad, about Rudy Giuliani.
Poll-Vaulting At The Times
For several weeks now the Monitor has put off writing a review of Bias, the blockbuster book by former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg. As the number one non-fiction best-seller in the country, Bias has been praised and panned, in print and on the air, so many times over that there seemed to be nothing new the monitor could add.
Bernie, You Could Have Done Better
The Monitor likes Bernard Goldberg, it really does. And the Monitor despises the smugly insular media types who've been lambasting the former CBS News correspondent for his bestselling (#1 on this week's New York Times list) expose of the liberal bias that pervades the nation's news media.
A Job Well Done By Mike Wallace
Surely any but the most obtuse regular visitors to this space will understand just how painful it is for the Monitor to extend even the slightest praise to "60 Minutes" hatchet man Mike Wallace.
Where Right And Left Meet
For those of us who came of age in the 1960's and 70's, a time when the Cold War was still very much a daily life-and-death concern, there was never much confusion about what Right and Left stood for in terms of U.S. foreign policy.
Jews In The Woodpile
When we left off last week, columnist Joe Sobran was suggesting that perhaps "black-mail" could explain the evident tilt toward Israel on the part of the Bush administration.
Anti-Semitism Of An American Icon
It was one of those stories that forever change the way an important public figure is perceived. But if you rely for your news on any or even all of the New York dailies, you might have overlooked - or entirely missed - the disturbing revelation that the Rev. Billy Graham, while at the height of his fame and influence 30 years ago, uttered anti-Semitic slurs and stereotypes in the company of an all-too-pleased Richard Nixon.
Toward Tradition’s Dangerous Blind Spot
They say if you live long enough you'll see everything, but that doesn't mean you won't need the smelling salts this week. Sit, don't stand, because the Monitor is compelled to defend the Anti-Defamation League and its national director, Abraham Foxman, against some outrageous statements made by Toward Tradition and its president, Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
Geraldo The ‘Palestinianist’
It happens every time: Let Israel bomb empty office buildings of the Palestinian Authority and the mainstream American media will for the most part restrain from pouncing - and point to that restraint as "proof" of their even-handedness. But let Israel take military action on a fuller scale and the wolves not only pounce, they devour.
Israel Acts – And The Media Howl (Part II)
Further observations on the generally poor performance of the American media in covering Israel's military actions in Palestinian areas: