NY Times vs. Chassidim

[WAM]

Articles are often shortened by an editor, context may have been removed for reasons of length context

Ftfy

[Yehuda57]

I haven't read your responses as detailed as I would like, but it seems at first glance that there is quite a lot of agreeing to missing context, missing data and the like. Quite a bit more than I would expect from an *investigative* piece that took two years.

Your responses also don't address the points I brought up earlier, which were even more blatant in revealing the smear.

This was not an op-ed. There was an op-ed that followed this report. This was an *investigation*. That requires ample data, with rigorous fact checking, and correct framing. Each of those facets was lacking in glaring ways. I can't put myself in the minds of the reporters or editors, but looking at all these instances of shoddy reporting stacking up to a pretty significant pile, one can only come to the conclusion that it was a smear.

[WAM]

one can only come to the conclusion that it was a smear.

It was a classic NYT hit piece.

[biobook]

They worked on this for two years. They interviewed 275 people.

I would have wanted to see a breakdown of that, __ parents of current students, __ satisfied graduates, ___ dissatisfied graduates, and so on, to get a better idea of how representative these are.  Are the 3 dissatisfied alumni out of 5 that they interviewed?  Or out of 50 graduates, 47 of whom were happy with their education?  How did they find these people?  How did they search for others?

They say that they're hoping to write more on this issue, so we'll better understand their bias when they use feedback from that form, which will give them access to more chassidim than they may have been able to engage through other methods. 

But where are the anecdotes from pro Yeshivah parents? They couldn't find any? Hundreds of thousands of people wrote comments in support of yeshivas, they couldn't publish one of them?

The hundreds of thousands of comments went to NYSED, not readily available to others. 
The focus of this article wasn't a broad analysis of yeshiva education, but rather an examination of whether hasidic yeshivas are deficient so they're trying to root out the deficiencies.

They went to the Forward to find a Yiddish writer. They could have asked for a Chareidi parent. I've written for the Forward. Many yeshivah parents have.

Maybe the Forward did forward them your name.  The Forward knows that they were ONE of the places they looked for a writer, and they don't know which writer was selected or where else they looked.  Translating into a language requires a slightly different skill set from writing in that language, so while any Yiddish-speaking parent could do this adequately, not all would do it well.

[biobook]

Your responses also don't address the points I brought up earlier, which were even more blatant in revealing the smear.

Some of the things I wrote above were direct responses to your points, but I'm sure I missed a lot in this thread.  Remind me of the more blatant ones.

[biobook]

I can't put myself in the minds of the reporters or editors, but looking at all these instances of shoddy reporting stacking up to a pretty significant pile, one can only come to the conclusion that it was a smear.

ES has been on the education beat at the NYT since 2018, so many of her previous articles are on schools in the covid era. 
BR won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series on the New York taxi industry.
It's not as if they hired Ilhan Omar to write this. 

Reporters with this background aim to produce Pulitzer-worthy work, not a piece of easily disproved garbage, so I think their intention is to address a problem that really exists.  Having said that, I agree that this piece doesn't reach that standard. 

This was an *investigation*. That requires ample data, with rigorous fact checking, and correct framing. Each of those facets was lacking in glaring ways. I can't put myself in the minds of the reporters or editors, but looking at all these instances of shoddy reporting stacking up to a pretty significant pile, one can only come to the conclusion that it was a smear.

a. Honest intention, excellent research = Investigative Report, well done
b. Honest intention, shoddy research = Investigative Report, poorly done
c. Malicious intention, excellent research = Smear
d. Malicious intention, shoddy research = Smear

I say b. and you say d. and we probably agree that it's not worth discussing definitions any more.

[Yehuda57]

a. Honest intention, excellent research = Investigative Report, well done
b. Honest intention, shoddy research = Investigative Report, poorly done
c. Malicious intention, excellent research = Smear
d. Malicious intention, shoddy research = Smear

I say b. and you say d. and we probably agree that it's not worth discussing definitions any more.

When reporters of the caliber you detail put together something so shoddy I fail to see how any reasonable person can come to any other conclusion. It's not that ES or BR have to come into it with malicious intent, but that they bought a malicious narrative and didn't report it out to discover possible alternatives.

[Moshe Green]

When reporters of the caliber you detail put together something so shoddy I fail to see how any reasonable person can come to any other conclusion. It's not that ES or BR have to come into it with malicious intent, but that they bought a malicious narrative and didn't report it out to discover possible alternatives.

+1
especially on the front page

[biobook]

I don't want my kids growing up with your hashkafos

Neither do I. 

I was responding to

Here is what I mean. You go to a public grammar school. You learn your religious beliefs at home or after school.
You would grow up orthodox with secular studies.

and as imayid2 intuited, I was referring to an earlier time period.  Between 1881 and about 1920, some 2.8 million Jews immigrated to America.  There were very few yeshivas at that time, and sending kids to public school was the norm, with religious education at home or after school, so CV's suggestion has sometimes worked.

That's not to say that they saw it as ideal, and it was parents who had gone through that ps experience who were motivated to open Jewish day schools for their own children in the 30s, 40s, 50s. 

I have more than once heard someone say that Yiddishkeit was nonexistent in America before the post-Holocaust generation arrived, effectively cancelling the lives of generations of frum yidden.

It is true that over time the majority of the descendants of those early immigrants became Conservative, Reform, atheists, or even Christians, but that wasn't universally true. 

[aygart]

+1
especially on the front page

That is the editor who very well may have been actual malicious intent.

[biobook]

When reporters of the caliber you detail put together something so shoddy I fail to see how any reasonable person can come to any other conclusion. It's not that ES or BR have to come into it with malicious intent, but that they bought a malicious narrative and didn't report it out to discover possible alternatives.

OKAY, IT'S A SMEAR

[imayid2]

OKAY, IT'S A SMEAR

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[CountValentine]

OKAY, IT'S A SMEAR

Is a smear and hit piece the same?

[Eb228]

ES has been on the education beat at the NYT since 2018, so many of her previous articles are on schools in the covid era. 
BR won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series on the New York taxi industry.
It's not as if they hired Ilhan Omar to write this. 

Reporters with this background aim to produce Pulitzer-worthy work, not a piece of easily disproved garbage, so I think their intention is to address a problem that really exists.  Having said that, I agree that this piece doesn't reach that standard. 
a. Honest intention, excellent research = Investigative Report, well done
b. Honest intention, shoddy research = Investigative Report, poorly done
c. Malicious intention, excellent research = Smear
d. Malicious intention, shoddy research = Smear

I say b. and you say d. and we probably agree that it's not worth discussing definitions any more.

You know that to T***p supporters, Pulitzer is meaningless after that guy got Pulitzer for Russia hoax, and they refused to take it back...

[CountValentine]

Wrong thread.

[Yehuda57]

OKAY, IT'S A SMEAR

[biobook]

You know that to T***p supporters, Pulitzer is meaningless after that guy got Pulitzer for Russia hoax, and they refused to take it back...

Haha! No, I was not aware of that story, but I see it now
"After a complaint from the former president, the board took the unusual step of reviewing the stories — and deciding they were indeed worthy of their prizes"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/07/18/pulitzer-reject-trump-russia-stories-challenge/

[biobook]

The question is what will you write?  A smear or investigation of the NYT reporters?  Or a defense of hasidic yeshivas?

[imayid2]

The question is what will you write?  A smear or investigation of the NYT reporters?  Or a defense of hasidic yeshivas?

Reading Jewish media over shabbos (Ami/Yated) I noticed that all articles started off reiterating that the author himself believed in well rounded secular education, but Satmar should be allowed to educate as they see fit, and how it’s an unprecedented potential danger to the authors preferred education method.

[biobook]

And yet, it moves