GOTCHA JOURNALISM “The frum media doesn’t play gotcha journalism” says Binyamin Rose. “We can’t first of all because we don’t have the research tools the major media outlets do. I’m not Chris Wallace with a team of producers who have tape handy of every public comment the interview source has made so they can throw it back in his face on live TV when they find a discrepancy. Researching a story is similar to preparing a legal case. Like any good attorney you have to be certain of your evidence and 99.9% sure that the person you are interviewing is lying to you now or lied in the past. And if not then you’re going to be nonproductive and will spend a lot of time antagonizing sources. To quote a recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review: ‘Reporters ask questions not to get information but to get a reaction. And even with that strategy they rarely succeed.’ ”

R ecent decades have seen a quantitative and qualitative burgeoning of the Torah-observant community in America which in turn has led to a growing engagement with the political business and certain other spheres of the larger American society. At the same time this community has developed a robust journalistic sector featuring numerous daily and weekly newspapers and magazines catering to the entire spectrum of the Orthodox community.

Mishpacha has brought together five prominent figures in the worlds of journalism and communal leadership to address some of the challenges and opportunities that these developments present for the Orthodox world. In considering these issues our panelists were asked to select from several questions and share their thoughts about these modern-day dilemmas

In what ways if any does the role of a frum journalist differ from that of a secular one? What particular strengths and drawbacks does a religious journalist bring to his work?

Is it for the frum journalist to hold institutions of general society such as government industry and business media etc. accountable? Is it for the frum journalist to hold the particular institutions of Orthodox Jewish society accountable?

What news is or is not “fit to print” in the Torah view? Does a frum readership have a “right to know ” or perhaps a “right not to know”? Are we aiming for news that disturbs or confirms our previously held views? Broadens or bolsters our boundaries?

It is considered axiomatic that at least as an ideal journalists are expected to strive for objectivity. In the case of the frum journalist who answers to the Torah’s standards is it indispensable desirable or perhaps objectionable to allow his Jewish worldview to color the way he reports the news? Could a case be made that news reporting as it currently exists in the world at large in which G-d is absent from the picture is inherently at odds with Torah?

The Panelists

Rabbi Sheftel Meir Neuberger a talmid of Yeshiva Ner Israel since 1959 served as a maggid shiur in the yeshivah from 1973 through 1986 when he became the executive assistant to his revered father Rabbi Herman N. Neuberger z”l. Upon his father’s passing in 2005 he assumed his position as president and menahel of the yeshivah.

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Jeff Jacoby is a longtime columnist for the Boston Globe and a nationally recognized conservative voice who has received multiple awards for his opinion journalism. A native of Cleveland Mr. Jacoby attended the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland. He graduated with honors from George Washington University in 1979 and from Boston University Law School in 1983.

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