https://pjmedia.com/author/ed-driscoll/feedPJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usThu, 09 Apr 2026 17:34:48 -0400<![CDATA[At first glance, watching the Criterion Collection‘s new 4K Blu-Ray release of 1976’s Network, it’s hard at first to match up the volcanic anger of Paddy Chayefsky’s writing with what we remember about the state of television in the mid-1970s. It all seems so quaint and nostalgic in retrospect — the news came in reassuringly small dabs of a half-hour of local info at 6 p.m., followed by a half-hour of national news at 6:30, rather than today’s competing 24-hour news channels on the cable dial.&nbsp;]]>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:47:06 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2026/04/07/paddy-chayefskys-network-n4951562<![CDATA[Question asked and answered: &nbsp;]]>Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:06:10 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2026/04/05/god-and-man-at-yale-and-fort-worth-n4951480<![CDATA[Finally, the rotund strutting totalitarian with his plundered millions has surrendered to the authorities, and the trial for his myriad wrongdoings can commence. Punch a Nazi they told us, and literally and figuratively, they don’t come any bigger than this fellow.]]>Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:41:06 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2026/03/12/nuremberg-n4950598<![CDATA[The New York Post reports: Mamdani blasted for requiring 5 forms of ID to shovel while DSA opposes Voter ID.]]>Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:41:32 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2026/02/21/mamdani-snow-removal-n4949806<![CDATA[The Lone Star State has played a surprising role in the toppling of the Red Star nation and its immediate aftermath. The Soviet Union began running episodes of the CBS nighttime soap opera Dallas in the early 1980s just to show how eeeeevil those scheming bourgeois Texas capitalist hoarders and wreckers could be. The best-laid plans of mice and Mensheviks backfired when Soviet audiences gazed in awe at the wealth of the Ewings and wanted a little of that for themselves. Even the quotidian details of American life seemed astonishing to them, as Karol Markowicz, now with the New York Post, wrote during her blogging days: &nbsp;]]>Sat, 14 Feb 2026 23:59:06 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2026/02/14/the-siberia-job-n4949514<![CDATA[This was a piece I wrote on May 9, 2010, and somewhere in the course of various updates of the PJM Website, the text of which became lost. In light of Marco Rubio&nbsp;declaring war on the Calibri font, I thought I would look back on the original font popularized by 20th-century left-leaning graphic designers. Helvetica seemed ubiquitous during the 1960s through the ‘80s, and a quite enjoyable documentary was released to honor its 50th anniversary in 2007.]]>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:26:14 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2025/12/15/liberal-fascism-the-font-n4947094<![CDATA[Meeting first as teenagers at Repton School in Derbyshire in the mid-‘70s, Andy Wilman has been Jeremy Clarkson’s behind the scenes partner in crime for much of their adult life. Wilman has been the producer of most of his TV series, including most recently, Clarkson’s Farm. His new book, Mr. Wilman’s Motoring Adventure: Top Gear, Grand Tour and Twenty Years of Magic and Mayhem,&nbsp;hilariously describes those misadventures, and how Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and Wilman, somehow transformed a Sunday night British show for car obsessives into one of the world’s most-watched TV shows.]]>Thu, 13 Nov 2025 10:33:46 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2025/11/13/mr-wilmans-motoring-adventure-n4945948<![CDATA[In ‘Suddenly Something Clicked,’ Walter Murch, Francis Ford Coppola’s Longtime Editor, Decodes the Language of Film‎ &nbsp;&nbsp;]]>Tue, 26 Aug 2025 19:22:07 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2025/08/26/walter-much-suddenly-something-clicked-n4943059<![CDATA[In a classic 2012 episode of "The Big Bang Theory," the notoriously girl-shy Raj Koothrappali buys a new iPhone, starts talking to Siri, and instantly falls head-over-heels in love. As much in love as broadcast TV will allow a half-hour sitcom about three super-genius geeks to portray.]]>Wed, 28 May 2025 19:38:05 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2025/05/28/2013s-her-joaquin-phoenix-and-scarlett-johansson-go-twenty-minutes-into-the-future-of-ai-n4940240<![CDATA["September 5," now out on Blu-ray and currently streaming on Paramount+, starts with the classic 1970s-era ABC TV logo followed by an expository montage with a chippy 1970s-style narrator telling the home viewers that the 1972 Munich summer Olympics were that city’s first since 1936, “a starting signal for a peaceful postwar Germany to share itself with the world.” The narrator beams with corporate pride, explaining the basics of how satellite TV works, and that ABC cameras are everywhere during the games, “including on the Olympic tower, which gives us a nice overview of the Olympic village.” Not coincidentally, as the montage explains how the images are being transmitted throughout the world, there is a brief shot of the World Trade Center in New York. (It’s a bit of an anachronism since construction of the two towers was not yet complete in 1972, but it works as a subliminal hint of the menace to come and as a callback to the ending of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film, "Munich.") &nbsp;]]>Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:20:00 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2025/03/04/september-5-n4937554<![CDATA[Documentary films, by their very nature, need to be visual. But how do you make a movie about past events where very little contemporaneous footage was shot? The title of ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ tells you much about what to expect — how one of hard rock’s most legendary groups was formed. But the film’s technical execution is the reason to see it on the big screen while you can.]]>Mon, 17 Feb 2025 14:01:00 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]><![CDATA[Movies]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2025/02/17/becoming-led-zeppelin-n4937055<![CDATA[“The show doesn’t go on because it's ready, it goes on because it’s 11:30.”]]>Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:17:00 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]><![CDATA[NBC]]><![CDATA[Netflix]]><![CDATA[Saturday Night Live]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2025/01/29/saturday-night-movie-n4936470<![CDATA[Jimmy sat in his darkened suite as Neal Preston, the tour photographer, clicked through tray after tray of Zeppelin concert slides. Jimmy was looking for a certain picture of himself, but every time a new slide of him came up, Jimmy would be dissatisfied, pointing out some flaw in his physique—“Belly! Crow’s feet!”—that the camera had captured. Finally Jimmy was asked what exactly he wanted. Without missing a beat, Jimmy Page answered what he was looking for: “Power, mystery, and the hammer of the Gods.”]]>Tue, 03 Dec 2024 16:35:00 -0500<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/12/03/the-hammer-of-the-gods-n4934797<![CDATA[For years, a recurring leitmotif at Instapundit, where I’ve been co-blogging for over a decade, was the phrase, “Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.” Glenn Reynolds coined it, but my co-insta-blogger Steve Green and I have used it frequently as well.]]>Wed, 30 Oct 2024 12:16:00 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]><![CDATA[Media Bias]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/10/30/against-the-corporate-media-n4933783<![CDATA[So I bit the bullet, summoned up my courage (no Dutch courage was involved, alas) and saw "Megalopolis" yesterday afternoon. (My wife and I were the only people seated in a surprisingly large theater in the suburbs of Fort Worth that was otherwise empty.) My first impressions: It’s bad, but in a bonkers, utterly pretentious sort of way, and in that sense, if you’re at all curious, go see it on the big screen – it probably won’t be there for much longer.&nbsp;]]>Sun, 06 Oct 2024 10:56:22 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/10/06/megalopolis-review-n4933112<![CDATA[Fans of The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime Video know the arc of the series quite well at this point. The BBC’s&nbsp;Top Gear, originally a staid program discussing boot space and fuel economy amongst British cars, debuted in 1977 and ran until 2001. In the 1990s, Tory motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson, then sporting the most enormous Chia Head of permed hair that any man has ever worn, and spouting a million miles of car-related extremely un-PC hyperbole, emerged as the undisputed star of the program until he left for solo projects in 1999. Top Gear, suffering declining ratings in his absence, was canceled by the Beeb two years later.]]>Fri, 13 Sep 2024 12:59:51 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]><![CDATA[Africa]]><![CDATA[Amazon]]><![CDATA[BBC]]><![CDATA[cars]]><![CDATA[Culture]]><![CDATA[Jeff Bezos]]><![CDATA[Streaming]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/09/13/amazon-grand-tour-one-for-the-road-n4932506<![CDATA[Most people these days know the broad strokes of Jimi Hendrix’s early life story. Born in Seattle in 1942 to parents Al and Lucille Hendrix, he began playing guitar at age 15. He enlisted in the Army in 1961, and spent a year in the 101st Airborne. (There’s a classic photo of Hendrix in uniform playing a cheap Danelectro electric guitar, eager to keep his chops up, even in the service.) After his discharge, he played backup guitar with several well-known black performers such as Ike and Tina Turner, Little Richard, and the Isley Brothers in the American south on what was called “the Chitlin Circuit.”]]>Sun, 11 Aug 2024 10:46:47 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/08/11/electric-lady-studios-documentary-n4931537<![CDATA[When Eric Clapton first announced that he was having a fundraising concert in London for Gaza after Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack, I assumed that it was simply to try to come full circle, at age 79, from his Enoch Powell-related, Courvoisier-fueled debacle in August of 1976, which was dug up by every journalist attempting to cancel Clapton over anti-lockdown and anti-COVID vaccine statements in late 2020 and 2021.&nbsp;]]>Tue, 11 Jun 2024 12:27:47 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]><![CDATA[Israel]]><![CDATA[Palestinians]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/06/11/eric-claptons-anti-israeli-turn-n4929789<![CDATA[The whiplash of events that we all witnessed in 2020 seemed overwhelming at the time. The growing fears of a pandemic as the year began, and the effects of the government forcing a near-total shutdown of the economy beginning in mid-March, followed by the springtime George Floyd riots and a summer filled with massive amounts of property damage and looting, the left’s “defund the police” mania, followed by the presidential election were a never-ending series of perfect storms that cry out for a book-length review placing them into context and historical perspective.&nbsp;]]>Wed, 22 May 2024 10:50:20 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/05/22/nellie-bowles-morning-after-the-revolution-n4929233<![CDATA[One night in 1983, I wandered through the Sam Goody record store in New Jersey’s Burlington Mall in my usual quest for new albums. It was a year or two before compact discs became popular, and decades before digital downloads. It was also 14 years before DVDs, and I spotted a copy of the Beatles’ last move, "Let It Be," on sale (for about $19.95 or so) on VHS videotape. Since I had never seen it, I thought I’d add it to my already expansive collection of Beatles albums and videotapes.&nbsp;]]>Wed, 08 May 2024 19:53:00 -0400<![CDATA[Ed Driscoll]]>https://pjmedia.com/ed-driscoll/2024/05/08/beatles-let-it-be-on-disney-n4928846