On the day after Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish year, some readers were incensed by a photo that appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune. It showed kapparot, a ritual in which an ultra-Orthodox Jew was swinging a chicken over his son’s head.
It is believed that through the ritual, the participant’s sins are transferred to a fowl. It is hoped that the bird, not the sinner, will suffer any misfortune stemming from the sins. After the ceremony, the chicken is slaughtered and given to the poor. Some Jews chose to donate money instead.
A photo of the ritual also appeared on the front page of The New York Times. In San Diego, where a kapparot photo appeared on Page A-3 Sept. 16, it got the attention of some Jewish readers who were offended.
“It was grotesque,” said Morris Casuto, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. “It was as if they decided to show a picture that ostensibly represented how the Jewish community prayed on the high holy days by using the most extreme image representing a very small part of Judaism. That’s not the first time the Union-Tribune has done something like this with a photo.”
He also criticized the newspaper for its Sept. 13 photo of a Palestinian woman weeping at a funeral that appeared with a story about possible challengers to Yasser Arafat in next year’s Palestinian elections.
“When people in our community see how the Union-Tribune appears to manipulate a story people ask whether there is a secondary agenda,” Casuto said. How do you justify running that photo to depict the way Jews pray on Yom Kippur?”
But while Casuto and others thought the photo was inappropriate, Stuart R. Josephs, past president of Beth Jacobs, an Orthodox synagogue, disagreed, saying it showed “an event unique to Yom Kippur.
“This practice,” Josephs wrote, “is not confined to the ultra-Orthodox but is observed by many other regular Orthodox Jews.” In his view, it’s not an extreme custom. “Consider all the turkeys consumed by Americans on Thanksgiving.”
National editor Mitch Weinstock, who lived in Jerusalem for five years, wrote the caption and is familiar with the ritual. Weinstock, who spoke with some of the callers, said he was surprised to hear some Jews were unfamiliar with the ritual. He said kapparot is conducted throughout the world, especially in areas with populations of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
While Weinstock believes the photograph was appropriate, if he were to do it over, he would have included a story explaining how Yom Kippur is observed throughout the world and the place that kapparot has in the observance for some Jews. It would provide a context missing from the photo and caption.
For Abdussattar Shaikh, the fallout from the 2001 attacks has affected his life profoundly. Less than a year later, the leader in the local Muslim community continues to make front-page news.
His name came to light two days after the Sept. 11 attacks with reports he had unwittingly rented rooms to two terrorists. The FBI said he was not a suspect.
Earlier this month, he was back in the media glare based on a report that he was an informant for the FBI. It is an allegation he vehemently denies; his denial played a prominent role in the Union-Tribune’s Sept. 9 story.
That story failed to acknowledge how the matter came to light; it should have. On Sept. 10, a fuller explanation was given. In fact, it was Newsweek that broke the story on its Web site. Although Shaikh was not identified in the Newsweek story, television reporters named him even after they apparently were unable to reach him for comment.
Union-Tribune journalists did their own reporting before the story saw print. They contacted their own sources who told them Shaikh was an FBI informant. It was information the newspaper was obligated to report, just as it was equally obligated to talk to Shaikh and report his denial.
One reader reacted by canceling his subscription, saying the Union-Tribune’s story put Shaikh in jeopardy. But, I think the newspaper had an obligation to report this story. On Sept. 14, a letter from Shaikh appeared in the newspaper again denying the allegations. Another letter accused the newspaper of irresponsible journalism.
Whether or not Shaikh was indeed an informant plays into questions about intelligence failures prior to Sept. 11. In fact, a story last Thursday said: “Congressional investigators plan to shine a spotlight on how two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who lived openly in San Diego escaped detection despite being identified in 1999 as ‘possible associates’ of al-Qaeda, the terrorist network that launched the attacks.” That story quoted the husband of a victim who said the hijackers “were living as roommates with an FBI informant.”
Because of what may be happenstance, Shaikh is in a difficult position. Yet the Union-Tribune’s credibility would be at stake if it failed to report the news.
Gina Lubrano’s column commenting on the media appears Mondays. It is the policy of The San Diego Union-Tribune to correct all errors. To discuss accuracy or fairness in the news, please write to Gina Lubrano, readers representative, Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191, or telephone (619) 293-1525. Send e-mail to:
readers.rep@uniontrib.com.
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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