MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-10-07 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] NY Times slant
|
algemeiner.com
New York Times Flunks Again in Coverage of Jews and Coronavirus
by Ira Stoll
5-6 minutes
A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7,
2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri / File.
Double standards. Factual errors. Disproportionate coverage and lack of
context. Conflicting information.
The problems that consistently afflict New York Times coverage of Jews
and Judaism, particularly Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism, are
flaring again amid the newspaper’s coverage of New York’s latest
coronavirus outbreak.
A New York Times column this week by Ginia Bellafante faulted the
“insular” community for being ill-informed. “The city needs to do a
better job at getting information to an insular community that already
believes it has herd immunity,” a subheadline over the column said.
The column begins:
“DO NOT test your child for Covid.”
So began a text that recently circulated on the messaging platform
WhatsApp, among yeshiva parents in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community.
A few paragraphs later, the Times column says, “many large Hasidic
families live in small, cramped apartments, typically without internet
access and often with just a landline.”
The end of the column includes the paragraph, “In a community that
prizes seclusion and remains averse to technology, information has a
tendency to spread very slowly.”
So which is it — landline only and technology averse? Or texting on
WhatsApp? The Times columnist can’t seem to make up her mind about which
broad-brush stereotype to deploy in describing Orthodox Jews.
The same column reports:
Governor Cuomo and his health commissioner, Howard A. Zucker, have
also been talking to religious leaders …One crucial message that has yet
to be received, Dr. Zucker said, is that herd immunity is a myth in
these communities. Many in this part of Brooklyn believe that because
the Orthodox were hit so hard by the virus this spring, they must have
already been sick, and that the crisis has passed. This, according to
public health officials, is simply not true.
Well, where could this “insular” community have possibly gotten this
“myth” of herd immunity from?
Quite possibly from The New York Times itself, which in a July 10 news
article reported:
According to antibody test results from CityMD that were shared with
The New York Times, some neighborhoods were so exposed to the virus
during the peak of the epidemic in March and April that they might have
some protection during a second wave.
“Some communities might have herd immunity,” said Dr. Daniel Frogel,
a senior vice president for operations at CityMD, which plays a key role
in the city’s testing program… While stopping short of predicting that
those neighborhoods would be protected against a major new outbreak of
the virus — a phenomenon known as herd immunity — several
epidemiologists said that the different levels of antibody prevalence
across the city are likely to play a role in what happens next, assuming
that antibodies do in fact offer significant protection against future
infection.
“In the future, the infection rate should really be lower in
minority communities,” said Kitaw Demissie, an epidemiologist and the
dean of the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in
Brooklyn.
A Times news article headlined “Backlash Grows in Orthodox Jewish Areas
Over Virus Crackdown by Cuomo” carries a correction: “An earlier version
of this article misstated the title of Simcha Felder. He is a state
senator, not a state assemblyman.”
The Times news article describes the protesters against Cuomo and de
Blasio as a “angry” and a “mob,” terms the Times has largely avoided
using to refer to Black Lives Matter protesters, whom the newspaper has
repeatedly described as “mostly peaceful.”
Three paragraphs of the Times article report “the anger was not limited
to the Orthodox Jewish community. The Roman Catholic Diocese of
Brooklyn, which has 1.5 million followers and 210 churches in Brooklyn
and Queens, said it was taken by surprise by the governor’s
announcement. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn condemned the new
rules as ‘outrageous’ in a statement on Tuesday night.”
“The religious freedom of our parishioners is being unjustly attacked,”
DiMarzio is quoted as saying.
One wonders why the Catholics are three paragraphs in the middle of a
long story and headline about the Jews, rather than the Jews being three
paragraphs in the middle of a long story and headline about the
Catholics. Maybe the idea of Catholics as spreaders of disease just
doesn’t resonant as much for New York Times editors? As a libel against
Jews, though, it has a long, sordid history at the Times, of which this
is just the latest sad chapter.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor
of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature,
can be found here.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
_______________________________________________
Hangout mailing list
Hangout-at-nylxs.com
http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/listinfo/hangout
|
|
