Hasidic news publication censors again

By Melissa Bell • Washington Post



Last week, Hasidic news publications decided to run the iconic Situation Room photograph with a noticeable change: they either cropped or photoshopped Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason out of the image citing modesty concerns.



It turns out photographs were not the only thing censored. A Hasidic news Web site also censored my story about the incident. Matzav.com, a Web site with the tag­line “The Jewish world @ your fingertips, reprinted seven paragraphs, removing these two paragraphs that raised some criticism of the practice:

However, many other people saw the incident as an example of the religion’s supression of women. “Extreme discomfort with the presence of women or even images of women is common to virtually all totalitarian religious communities, regardless of the tradition involved,” Brad Hirschfield, a Jewish blogger for The Post, writes.



Others took issue with the affront to journalistic standards. One reader on my previous post about the photo manipulation cited a section the Code of Ethics according to the Society of Professional Journalists. It reads: “Never distort the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is always permissible. Label montages and photo illustrations.”