New York — Exhibit A: The color photograph atop page 1 of a recent New York Times was of the Salute to Israel Parade.
In the background, marchers were coming up Fifth Ave. waving American and Israeli flags. More prominent in the foreground was a group of protesters holding a sign saying “End Israeli Occupation of Palestine.”
Was this photograph:
A) A sign of the Times’ pro-Israel sentiments, giving the parade such prominent, front-page attention.
B) An indication of the newspaper’s anti-Israel sentiments, giving equal weight to 100,000 marchers for Israel and 600 protesters.
C) A sign of the paper’s down-the-middle impartiality, showing both sides of the dispute in one dramatic photo?
A number of Jewish New Yorkers would answer B, incensed that the pro-Israel parade was less the focus than the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
(It seems the Times, in retrospect, agreed. An editor’s note the next day on page 2 acknowledged, “the effect was disproportionate. In fairness, the total picture presentation should have better reflected The Times’ reporting on the scope of the event, including the disparity in the turnouts.”)
The photo appeared on the eve of a planned 30-day boycott of the Times spearheaded by two local leaders, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and Fred Ehrman, a businessman active in the Modern Orthodox community.
Wrong message
I know and admire Ehrman and Lookstein, and I understand the sense of anger and frustration that has led them to initiate this protest against the Times. I feel it too, at times.
However, it’s one thing to point out examples of incomplete, insensitive, misleading or untrue reporting to the editors of one of the world’s great newspapers. Indeed, it is an obligation. In addition, raising funds for ads in the Times and other publications to highlight such inaccuracies might be educational.
And I have long believed it is more fitting for Jewish organizations to place paid obituary and communal announcements in The Jewish Week, as Ehrman and Lookstein suggest, rather than in the Times, not only because it benefits this paper financially but because we are the paper of record for the New York Jewish community.
But to advocate a boycott, even for a limited time, strikes me as the wrong message and a disturbing approach. Even the leaders of this effort appear uncomfortable with the word “boycott,” preferring to call their action a “protest.”
But urging people to cancel subscriptions is a boycott, and it’s a dirty word to Jews for good reason. We have suffered from them. And if we are prepared to initiate them now, we can’t attack them as immoral when they are used against us or Israel, as they have been.
What’s more, we who believe in and advocate for freedom of expression negate it when we try to use economic power to squelch a point of view. We should advocate fairness and truth, not the muzzling of a free press.
In practical terms, a boycott can spark a backlash, having less effect on profits at the Times than on its attitude toward the Jewish community, convincing editors and executives we are unreasonable and irrational.
They may conclude, in their own frustration, that nothing they do in their newspaper can pacify us. We will be dismissed as less than serious, and the result could be less motivation to provide balanced coverage.
Unless we conclude The New York Times as an institution has no interest in providing balanced coverage (and I’m not there yet), it’s to our advantage to keep the dialogue going because the facts are on our side. We need more constructive criticism, more marshaling of information, more voices speaking for fair reporting — not a call to shut ourselves off from reporting and opinions we don’t want to deal with.
I also worry about the tendency in our community to dismiss the news media as anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. Those are loaded phrases, and we best use them with extreme caution. Don’t apply them to The New York Times, for example, unless you’re prepared to make the same charge against Ha’aretz and other liberal publications in Israel.
Here’s my dilemma: As a supporter of Israel reading about the Mideast, I feel I know The Truth of the situation and become upset when I see media coverage lacking in the moral equivalency I am seeking.
As a journalist, though, I appreciate the difficulties of trying to present a balanced picture of a bitter, complex conflict that to an objective outsider may have more than one truth.
As I’ve written before, there are certain journalistic traits that translate into negative coverage for Israel. Journalists tend to look for conflict, favor the underdog (in this case the Palestinians), present photo images that create empathy for the less-armed side and, most important, obsess on symmetry rather than history or context.
So in the name of objective reporting, Israeli retaliations against armed militants are juxtaposed and equated with terrorist attacks on women and children.
It is exasperating to read suggestions that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s use of military force is as wrong as Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat’s use of children as homicide bombers. But we need to respond, not turn away.
Thoughtful letters of complaint should be written to the editors. Phone calls, e-mails and, if possible, meetings with newspaper executives pointing out the immorality of balance serve a purpose, too.
It’s difficult to keep perspective, especially when we feel upset, but it’s important. I recently participated in a symposium at Tel Aviv University on “Israel in the Eyes of the Media” and heard little outcry against the American press.
When I met with several top officials in Israel’s Foreign Ministry who monitor the world press, their response to American Jewry’s complaints was, “Let them read just about any newspaper in Europe, any day, and they’ll see real bias.” By comparison, they felt the American press was relatively balanced.
That’s not to say we should accept coverage we consider to be unfair without speaking out. And if you’re fed up with the Times, don’t buy it.
But boycotts are a desperate act, a signal that there’s nothing more to talk about. I prefer the notion of a free and open press, of responding to inaccuracy with truth, and trusting the public to figure out the difference.
Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week.
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