On the front page of the New York Times today the article, "Orthodox Jews Rely More on Sex Prosecution" caught my interest. As i read further it didn't go into detail about all the convicted criminals, or give full on details of the victims but it was what they failed to mention that intrigued me. The New York Times was spotlighting a religious sect in relation to sex prosecution which seems counterintuitive. Stories of molestation and rape have been covered in every newspaper and in every town, but choosing to focus on one specific group of people is rather interesting.
We know that orthodox Jews aren't the only one committing these acts but that is solely what the article covers. Biased? I'll let you answer that. I don't ever see people writing stories on the African American race and their incidents with rape or older white males and their run ins with the law. So why segment these people. Yes, (according to the article) there's some 180,000 people under the Hasidic religion with only one or two arrests being made a couple years ago. The numbers have significantly increased, last year the number was 26. Now doesn't 26 seem like a large number?! I would tend to disagree. While 26 is greater than 1 or 2, in comparison to the whole United States population this number is minuscule! This increase in number seems to be the anchor of writing this story which i find preposterous. I think the reporter's just wanted to put two topics together that they knew would cause someone to think to themselves.....hmmm Orthodox Jews and Sex Offenders?An article like this makes a reader want to read more than just the headline. You could say it worked for me.
So one must ask themselves, is that what a journalist is supposed to achieve? Are journalists supposed to stretch information to give the general population something of interest? Or should they relay the information they receive in an appropriate, informative yet interesting manner. This question goes back to our discussion we had today in class about what is truth and what's a journalist's responsibilities. While I think some of these facts are proof in this article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/nyregion/14abuse.html?_r=1&ref=todays paper it just doesn't do it for me. Let's talk about a specific incident that has never been covered before. Lets tell a story that has never be told.
If i were a journalist I would steer away from the lets pick a somewhat innocent sect of people and tag them with sex prosecution. Some might call this harsh but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Yes, it can be offensive to reveal the Jews in this kind of light but I ask myself why? Is it necessary knowing that some 26 Orthodox Jews committed sexual crimes? No. Why not emphasize the one interesting sentence in the article about the fact that up until recently Jews haven't been able to voice their opinion. They always took matters into the hands of their rabbis and most of the time situations were too complicated for them to handle. Now, Jews are speaking up and standing up for themselves. Why not tune in to this part of the story and take it one step further through telling the story in the voice of a Hasidic Jew? This would give the deep, emotional wow factor that would give the readers exactly what they want to read.
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