What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
China, yesterday: Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open your window. Do not sing. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Imagine living somewhere, some big modern city, where drones fly around giving you orders. There are 26 million people in Shanghai. That’s a fact. It’s a thing we can’t deny. And…
Let’s talk about those sinister oligarchs we keep hearing about. Let’s talk about the men—they’re all men—of vast wealth who control whole industries and exist in perfect symbiosis with their regime: a regime that grants the oligarchs regulatory favors so they can make more money, in return for which favors the oligarchs throw the full…
A quick review of the Danish headlines Thursday morning didn’t turn up much political news about America. Every outlet had a story about Bruce Willis’s retirement from acting, and most had several articles about the fallout from Will Smith’s assault of Chris Rock at the Oscars. (Politiken ran five on its homepage; Jyllands Posten had an article…
A British poet and inventor named John Harington wrote a couplet in the 16th century that has survived to the modern era: Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?Why, if it prosper none dare call it treason. It’s a truth that’s been expressed in a lot of different ways through the centuries; Harington’s version is…
“This was the story of Howard Beale,” announces the narrator at the start of the movie Network, “the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.” Apparently the only thing more dangerous than lousy ratings is excellent ratings. Tucker Carlson is by far the most popular host on American cable…
I’ve been very critical of the establishment media in Denmark and the United States. I’ve called them “garbage media” and have used words like “execrable” and “disgusting” and “grotesque” in describing a lot of journalists and editors. I’ve called them hacks and partisans. I’ve avoided hyberbole because none has been needed: the establishment media new…
I’ve written a lot about Michael Crichton’s “Gell-Mann Amnesia” in the past. It’s the phenomenon of encountering a story in the media on a topic about which you’re knowledgeable, realizing the story has everything completely wrong, then relying on the same media for stories on subjects about which you are not knowledgeable and assuming they’ve…
On January 7, Ekstra Bladet published an editorial in which they apologized for not having done a better job questioning the government on all things covid: We FailedEditorial, EkstraBladet, Jan 7 I only became aware of the editorial today when I stumbled over it on a conservative American website (AceOfSpades). There are two reasons I…
In an article that’s supposed to be about Joe Biden’s address to the nation on January 6, DR proves once again that there’s no Democratic Party talking point they’re unwilling to pass on to the Danish public as a matter of established fact. Correspondent: Biden’s speech was the first direct accusation from “the top” against…
Ladies and gentleman, the balanced Danish media: Do you remember the pictures? A year ago wild and angry Trump supporters stormed the American capitolAngelica Schou-Petersen, DR.dk, Jan 6 One year after the attack on America’s democracy: what’s happened since the storming of the capitol?Lillian Gjerulf Kretz, DR.dk, Jan 6 Trump’s people have put a large-scale…
I’ve talked about the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect before (here, for example), but allow me to restate Michael Crichton’s elegant observation so we all have it top of mind: The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect describes the phenomenon of reading an article about a subject you know quite well and realizing it’s got everything wrong—then continuing to read…
Late Saturday night (European time), already suspended anchor Chris Cuomo was officially terminated by CNN. CNN confirmed the firing and said that Cuomo had been “terminated … effective immediately” as an outside law firm continues to investigate “his involvement with his brother’s defense.” But wait, there’s more: The station was notified by an attorney representing an…
Mikkel Danielsen had a strange piece out in Berlingske yesterday: Fox News’s big star put a video out on the internet. Then the hosts burst into conflict.Mikkel Danielsen, Berlingske.dk, Nov 25 (“Then the hosts burst into conflict” is a lousy translation of a Danish colloquialism for which there’s no handy English equivalent, so the clunkiness…
Most of the posts on this blog relate to Danish misrepresentations of America and Americans. But the Highway of Misunderstandings has always been a two-way street. With multiple lanes in each direction. And heavy traffic. Case in point, a tweet from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from a few weeks ago (which came to my attention via…
Friday evening Danish time, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted by a jury of his peers in Wisconsin. I was braced for the worst from the Danish media over the weekend, and TV2 didn’t let me down. Teenager shot and killed two and went free—why the case divides AmericaLaura Byager Rabøl, TV2 News, Nov 20 If you…
DR’s entire foreign news division should be disbanded and rebuilt from scratch. Trump’s investigation of FBI and Russia is still running — and there’s a there there.Jakob Busk Olsen, DR.dk, Nov 5 The article is of course about the arrest of Igor Danchenko. It doesn’t get much play on DR’s website: it’s a smallish feature…
