First it was the Jerusalem Post on Motzei Shabbos, now it’s MyFoxNY, and the NY Post.
The following is from MyFoxNY:
A Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper digitally erased Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the iconic photo of the White House Situation Room, as President Obama and his staff watched the raid on Usama bin Laden’s compound.
The New York Post reported Monday that the paper, Der Zeitung, also removed Director for Counterterrorism Audrey Tomason from the photo in its Friday edition.
The Jerusalem Post speculated that the weekly, which serves the strictly orthodox community in Williamsburg, did not want to show women in authority positions. It also noted that the White House banned news organizations from having the pictures “manipulated.”
It is by no means the only manipulated version of the image, with many satirical takes appearing on the internet. But Der Zeitung’s version was the only one to appear in the more traditional press.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
11 Responses
Yated & Hamodia don’t either print pictures of females.
That being said the smarter thing would have been to avoid printing the picture altogether rather than altering it and providing the goyishe media with an unnecessary dose of cynicsm k’neged “ultra” orthodox jews.
I do wonder though how as a NYS senator many chasidishe rebbes had no problem meeting with Hillary in person but yet wouldn’t allow her picture in their newspapers.
For starters, the editors of the Chasidic publication ought to consider giving an explanation of the doctoring of the photo to their readers, including an explanation of the Halacha that requires the alteration, if that is the basis for their manipulation of the photograph. Commenter No. 1 above makes a good point, which can perhaps be explained by the rabbis who met with Senator Clinton.
Given the interest of general interest media in the alteration of the photo, it might be wise for the Chasidic editors to make available to the public an explanation of their editorial decision about the photo. At the present time, i.e., the early 21st-Century in America, the general public is generally respectful of and courteous toward observant Jews.
They just love printing about the ‘ultra orthodox’, for good or for bad. Whether it’s about anorexia or about not printing pictures of women in a men’s paper, wherther about corruption or just an insight of our organizations. They are just tickled by us and can’t get enough of it. They find the most mundane things interesting.
The photo was correct as printed by the frum newspapers. Even the Secretary of State needs to use the facilities at times and that’s when this other photo was taken.
cherrybim,
where are you getting your information from?
…but advocating the killing of Obama next…that you print. Remarkable.
I saw the photo as released by the White House, it was released with a notice prohibiting modification. I’m not sure how they can do that since usually works of the US government are in the public domain (17 U.S.C. §101). Editing this photo may therefore be illegal and possiably assur. The fact that everyone else is doing it does not change that.
That said as I undersatnd it the policy of these newspapers is to never print pictures of women even if the women are frum and dressed tzniusly. I would like to hear the newspapers explanation of this policy.
This s nothing new. Countless news agencies aired doctored photos for ages.
They want news why don’t they cover the story in BP last week where a yid was robbed @ Gunpoint and both perps were apprehended by yiddin!!
Correction:
Tzeitung is not a Williamsburg Paper. It’s offices are in BP. Dont know why Flatbush’s YW wanted to place BP’s Tzeitung in Williamsburg.
The canard that Chreidim are misogynists who don’t want to see women in a position of power is absurd, but one that a Jewish Week (not exactly lovers of orthodoxy) reporter suggested and that carried to most of the secular media. Only one or two papers that I saw gave at least equal weight to the possibility that it was for modesty reasons.
I don’t understand why the paper that published this can’t release a statement that for modesty reasons there will never be a picture of any woman in their newspaper, no matter how modest the woman may be.
As many Jews have difficulty with this sensitivity, it’s hard to imagine that more than a small minority of the secular world will even grasp the sensitivity for this policy (whether it’s “right” or “wrong”), but it might prevent “blood libels” of alleged charedi misogynist policies.
I do hope that if they did doctor the photo that they, at least, mentioned Mrs. Clinton’s presence in that room.
laytzonay hador:
—————-
I do agree it would have been smarter to not publish the picture rather than to allegedly doctor it. I wonder if the paper did mention Mrs. Clinton’s presence there with a “not shown” note; I don’t know, but nobody discussed that minor detail.
However, meeting someone is different than having a picture of them in your newspaper. Meeting someone means they see and hear exactly what you do and say in their presence for the short amount of time of your meeting.
On the other hand, putting their picture in a newspaper means tens of thousands of people now have access to that picture forever. So, orders of magnitude more people for a similarly greater amount of time. See the difference?
The newspaper has a right to print or not to print whatever they want!!