Responsa postscript

[vettecat]

As a followup to my recent post about the NYT article controversy, I just saw this article, in which the cause of the controversy admits that he was, in fact, not deliberately cut from the photograph. About half the class was left out because the photographer couldn't fit everyone into the frame, and the photo that ran in the newsletter happened to be one that didn't include him. (I'm not in the shot shown here because I was in the half that made it into the newsletter... the cutoff point was the woman in the back row with the white hat. Everyone to the left of her [well, to her right] wasn't in the newsletter shot. The article author is at the extreme left.)

This is the really disturbing part:
[the photographer], who is now based in New York, said the Times "paid my way to go back to [his Boston studio] and find the negative. They wanted to run the [reunion] picture to illustrate" [the author]'s claim of being discriminated against because of his relationship with a non-Jew. [the photographer] returned with the photo but the Times opted not to publish it, he said, when it became obvious that there was no cropping but simply an overflowing of reunion participants beyond the camera's range.

Going through with publishing the rant when it became obvious that his complaint was baseless seems extremely unprofessional. The Orthodox Union is calling for the Times to drop him from their staff on the basis of loss of journalistic credibility. I don't know if that'll actually happen, but it does make you question how closely the Times checks all their other facts...

Comments

[quietann.livejournal.com]

That utterly sucks. It's not just chutzpah, it's something far worse. I'm glad it's been brought to light, though.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, running a story for shock value when you know it's not accurate seems like more of a National Enquirer thing to do. I just hope more people hear about this.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the wrong information is usually much more prominent than the correction in a story with this much controversy attached.

[arib.livejournal.com]

In a microcosm, this can be seen in vettecat's LJ. The original post about the article attracted a large number of comments. This one only has three so far.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Has the Times published a correction?

What's interesting is the letters published in response to the original article. Of nine letters, three of them addressed the photographs as a major point. None of them (except perhaps the last one) addressed the point that Jewish doctors "shouldn't" treat non-Jews on Shabbat if they don't have the intention that it's only for the sake of peace with them (which was represented as a major, legitimate opinion), even to save their lives, which was by far the most inflammatory, and hardest to explain to e.g. non-Jewish coworkers and friends, than any supposed cropping of photos.

The Times will do nothing about it because this is just the sort of article that left-wing Jews, themselves feeling insecure about their religious behavior and status, eat up. (The folks I refer to are the same ones that break every halacha in the book and are the largest single donor class to Chabad.)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I don't actually get the NYT, but I haven't seen anything passed around about them posting a correction. And I'm sure there were a lot more letters that they didn't choose to print.