It is now well known that the bloodied and dazed
"Palestinian" depicted in the Associated Press photograph
published in The New York Times and other major papers
on the first day of Rosh Hashana was in reality a yeshiva boy
from Chicago. And that Tuvia Grossman's assailants were not
Israelis but members of a Palestinian mob who dragged the
young man out, beat and stabbed him. And that the infuriated
Israeli policeman with a baton in the background was shouting
not at the bloodied youth but at the Palestinians who
brutally attacked him.
The correction the Associated Press (and The Times)
ran several days later was anemic, almost rivaling the
outrageousness of the original caption. It identified the
wounded man as Mr. Grossman, described him as "an American
student in Israel" -- but made no mention of his religion, no
mention of how he suffered his injuries, and no mention of
the Israeli policeman's actual role in the incident.
Exactly a week after the original photo ran in the Times, the
paper, to its credit, did publish a follow-up story
explaining the precise context of the shot. Seasoned
observers, though, could not be faulted for wondering if the
photograph would have been published in the first place had
the press known what it really depicted.
For there are a number of more subtle biases to be perceived
by readers of newspapers like The Times -- and other
media as well. Take the Temple Mount, which unbiased
historians have always described precisely as what its name
represents -- the site of the two Holy Jewish Temples, the
second of which was destroyed by the Roman army nearly two
thousand years ago. Of late, in apparent deference to
Palestinian leaders who claim that no Jewish Temple ever
stood on the Jerusalem hill toward which Jews have prayed for
millennia, The Times has appended the phrase "which
the Arabs call the Haram al Sharif."
More recently, the same influential paper referred to "the
Temple Mount, which Israel claims to have been the site of
the First and Second Temple." No longer established
historical tradition but a mere "claim."
A day later, the paper described Israeli troops as having
"stormed the Haram, holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem, where
hundreds of people were at worship." No mention whatsoever in
that article of any "Temple Mount."
When baseless biases are openly voiced, they are seen for
what they are: ugly, evil, human faults. When subtly layered,
though, into journalistic products -- choices of photographs,
captions, turns of phrase, stories' spins -- they often slip
by unnoticed, and proceed to infect and deform countless
hearts and minds.
All who understand the seemingly self-evident fact that the
ongoing rioting is the fault of... the rioters should have no
problem seeing the sad bias in much of the recent reportage
on events in Israel. But the Middle East conflict is hardly
the only context in which media bias should be obvious to
objective observers.
I have often been a public critic of the press -- both
general and Jewish -- for misportraying the Orthodox Jewish
community. Whether it has been the repeated focus on
individual rowdies responding to pointedly non-traditional
services at the Kosel or shameless exaggerations of such
confrontations (excrement was never -- repeat, never --
thrown at worshipers); whether it was calling Israel's
carefully crafted balance between synagogue and state a
"theocracy", or the characterization of the Rabbinate's
jurisdiction over matters of personal status -- designed, in
David Ben-Gurion's words, "to avoid, G-d forbid, the
splitting of the Jewish people" -- as an "Orthodox monopoly";
whether it was misrepresenting the words of Torah-scholars or
spreading baseless stories about Orthodox Jews' practices --
the media's demonization of Orthodox Jews is an all too
common feature of what passes today for objective
journalism.
Perhaps the silver lining in The Times' cloudy reportage on
the Middle East is that now it should be clear to all caring
Jews, of whatever religious or cultural persuasion, that the
media can, simply put, be dreadfully irresponsible -- and
that when it is, it is not a vital "fourth estate" but a
clear and present danger to Jews.
What a timely and proper resolution we might all consider at
the start of this new Jewish year to unabashedly doubt the
media when it paints Jews -- Orthodox or any of us -- with a
tar-loaded brush.
Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath
Israel of America and Am Echad's American director.
