Or perhaps the investigation will find the opposite to be true and that the cutbacks would have occurred due to state funding inequities no matter what religion the board members followed.
But listening to Brian Lehrer’s take on the story on November 19, 2014, I was appalled – not as a rabbi or a Jew but as a broadcaster.
The featured guest on the show was Merryl Tisch, the chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents.
In other words, the person mounting an investigation of the “chassidic” school boards was given a platform to discuss those accusations and answer questions from listeners. This being “The Brian Lehrer Show,” there was no equal platform given to any representative of the school boards.
Let me repeat what Hannah Rosin said went wrong with Rolling Stone’s journalism: No voice was given to those who had been accused.
I was so angered by this one-sided presentation that I filed a complaint. It stated in part:
On the program of 11/19/2014 one community was denied a spokesperson to appear on an equal footing alongside their protagonist. I believe that this violates the stated aims of WNYC Public Media Code of integrity, in particular points one and two.
That Media Code states:
Public media, individually and collectively:
- Contribute to communities’ civic, educational, and cultural life by presenting a range of ideas and cultures and offering a robust forum for discussion and debate.
- Commit to accuracy and integrity in the pursuit of facts about events, issues, and important matters that affect communities and people’s lives.
- Pursue fairness and responsiveness in content and services, with particular attention to reflecting diversity of demography, culture, and beliefs…
I also complained that in general, WNYC and “The Brian Lehrer Show” allow no representative from the large and exponentially growing Orthodox Jewish community to elaborate that community’s positions and views.
WNYC’s senior director of publicity, Jennifer Houlihan Roussel, replied to my complaint. She wrote, “We did not have a representative of the Orthodox community, and we also did not have representatives of the black, Latino or public-school parents community, who also would have had their own responses to Chancellor Tisch.”
That sounds like a reasonable point, except that Chancellor Tisch had not set up an investigation of the black, Latino, or public-school parents community.
The target of her investigation is the Orthodox community, and WNYC’s denying it an equal voice to defend itself was unfair – and bad journalism to boot.
Houlihan Roussel continued, “It is important to note that in the past, when we have done segments on East Ramapo with community leaders (as opposed to high-ranking officials), the Orthodox community has been well represented.”
I wrote back asking her to cite any Orthodox representative “The Brian Lehrer Show” has featured at any time in the studio on this or any other issue that affects the Orthodox community.
She did not reply.
There are, of course, a number of individuals who could easily provide a perspective and response from what is now the city’s – and the nation’s – fastest growing Jewish demographic.
I contacted one, Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel, for his reaction to WNYC’s assertion that the Orthodox community has been “well represented” on Brian Lehrer’s show.
“All I can say,” he said, “is that WNYC is well aware of Agudath Israel’s prominent role in the city’s Jewish life and on the political scene, and knows, too, that I serve as its spokesman. Why the station seems to ignore us is anyone’s guess.”
In fact, when there is an issue that affects the Orthodox community of New York or New Jersey, Brian Lehrer turns to a most unlikely source for guests – the Forward, a publication with a relatively small general circulation and an even smaller readership among Orthodox Jews, who by and large disdain the paper’s aggressive secularism and decidedly left-of-center politics.
