Posted on 06/12/23
| News Source: Washington Examiner
A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, recently acknowledged the controversy surrounding his paper’s coverage of New York’s Hasidic yeshivas. Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Sulzberger declared, “The central criticism is not so much about the accuracy of the coverage itself, but whether it could be misused.”
In fact, from the beginning, experts have pointed out that the articles were filled with inaccuracies. One representative article was “rife with half-truths and distortions,” wrote Jason Bedrick and Jay P. Greene in this magazine in September.
Yet beyond the misrepresentations, another question has hung in the air: What did the New York Times leave out? Interviews with 34 people, including yeshiva graduates, parents, and teachers, along with education scholars and elected officials, 16 of whom contacted the New York Times or were interviewed by it, have now helped answer that.
The New York Times relied heavily on critics of the community and those who have left it. Giving the Hasidic community itself a voice in its own story, it turns out, upends the carefully crafted and selective narrative.
In its initial article, the New York Times asserted Hasidic parents “feel they have little choice but to send their children to the[se] schools.” But what the New York Times paints as peer pressure, said Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, is actually a genuine commitment to religious education and a religious life.