Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Jewish News hits back hard!


Well, well, well, who would’ve thunk it? The Jewish News trotting out its heavy artillery to repel AJN Watch. Yes folks, Captain Adam Kamien and his S.S. SHMOOZE have been engaged to avenge the honour of his employer! So critical is this assignment, that Shmooze has reduced its usual piffle about Borat, Bruno and the rest of the dreckerati to focus efforts on abusing, accusing and slurring AJN Watch. And he has done it - in his sneering best.

Poor little Adam complains about the “bottomless trench of desperate boredom” behind “AJN bashing” on the blogosphere. And he kvetches about this blog’s anonymity. What a hypocrite! A quick check will show that all comments on the AJN website are anonymous.

But the REAL chutzpah is that the Shmooze column - which is obviously cobbled together by some underemployed cut-and-paster - in most week’s editions doesn’t disclose who that nebech is. Yep., anonymous! (And quite understandable too. After all, why would any self-respecting journalist want his/her name associated with such drivel?)

But seriously Adam, rather than throwing a childish tantrum, why not attempt to respond to the issues raised by this blog? Several charges and serious grievances have been made against the tabloid that you so smugly defend. Why not address these rather than roll out a Thesaurus-like list of every spiteful word you can think of? It’s time to grow up and learn to write like a mentch. Then, and only then, will AJN Watch consider any ‘challenge’ of yours.

PS. Your comment that AJN Watch is “undignified” was real cute. A real pity that we missed an opportunity to ‘dignify’ ourselves by adopting some of your illustrious prose. Eg, ”…dross that slavers from your keyboards, polluting the blogosphere …”

PPS. Your comment: “If your posters had it their way, Hamodia would be the only rag in town” implies that the AJN is the other ‘rag in town’. Mr Zablud, no doubt, will thank you for the compliment.

And whilst it is not our job to defend the Hamodia (this blog, BTW, has no connections with the publishers), before you try to disparage them you may be interested to learn that the Hamodia outstrips the Jewish News in almost every sphere. Hamodia offers dozens of pages of Israeli, world and Jewish news, well-written and interesting feature articles, women’s and children’s sections - as well as items of local interest. That compares pretty well to the AJN’s 2 or 3 pages of cut-and-and paste material from the Jerusalem Post website and a few media releases supplied to it by local organisations. (If the AJN ever ran an honest poll of its readership it would confirm that the main reason of those who still buy it, are the births, marriages and death notices. (No doubt, if they could introduce divorce notices, circulation figures would rise.) The only other worthwhile reading in that paper is the ‘letters page’ - which is supplied by readers and not by paid staff.

The AJN can only dream of having the kind of readership and influence that the Hamodia has. Here’s some of what Wikipedia has to say:
Hamodia is a Hebrew language daily newspaper, published in Israel. A daily English language edition is also published in the United States and Israel. The U.S. version is the first Haredi Jewish daily newspaper ever published in English in the U.S. It is also the only Orthodox Jewish newspaper published daily in two different country editions.
The weekly edition, in English, is published simultaneously in Jerusalem, London, New York and Melbourne. Recently a French weekly version has been introduced and enjoys a wide circulation both in the French speaking community in Israel and in France itself.

9 comments:

  1. What is so nasty? He is certainly nicer to you than you have been to his employer.

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  2. Anonymous - you obviously haven't checked out the earlier posts on this blog otherwise you would not have made such a comment

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  3. A friend has brought your new blog to my attention. I cannot claim to agree with all your views, but being a great believer in freedom of speech, I am pleased to see that you have taken the AJN to task for its appalling standards of reporting. I find it surprising that in the vibrant active Jewish community of Melbourne, it has taken the disgraceful treatment of the Adelaide rabbi to bring about some opposition voices to the newspaper. With the proliferation of blogs and websites one could have expected that other disgruntled sectors of our community would have taken such an initiative. But like many other good ideas in recent times, it is up to the frum Jews to take action.

    Personally I have no issues with Shmooze. In fact I quite enjoy reading about Borat and the dreckerati as you call it. My question is why the newspaper’s management found it fit o attack you via their film reviewer rather than a more appropriate writer. In any case, good luck. Who knows, this blog may be the catalyst ti improve Jewish News standards.

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  4. Can't stand shmooze, but possibly for slightly different reasons.

    Is it true that women can't have bylines in Hamodia?

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  5. Hamodia has a women's section and definitely has women writers, the main editor of the English version is a woman, I think name is Ruth Lichtenstein, She is family with the gerer rebbe shlita

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  6. Most Hamodia readers can obviously live with the knowledge that their women journalists have the byline 'L. Cohen' rather than 'Leah Cohen'.

    OTOH, what does upste them (or should) is that the AJN every week carries pritzus photographs, ads for chazir treif and Shabbos descerating establishments, reports on "Jewish" sports played on Shabbos and unfair and despicable news articles regarding religious Jews.

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  7. Interesting article on Galus Australis concerning anti-religious prejudice.

    www.galusaustralis.com

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  8. Let's not forget that the JNF was silent when Kfar Darom was surrendered to our enemies for no reason, when that village was bought with donations made to the JNF, trusting that organization to safeguard that land in Jewish hands.

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  9. That last comment should be posted at
    http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/2009/09/jnf-palm-tree-destruction-and-xmas.html

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