Clifford Richner and Stuart Richner
Why we ran those ads
As you can see in this week's Herald, we've had a lot of feedback about two ads placed by the Advocates for Lawrence Public Schools, supporting Pam Greenbaum, Maribel Cancelliere and Andrew Levey, in last week's paper. The ads posed the question, "Should the Lawrence Public School District Be Run By An Orthodox Majority?" They attacked the Orthodox majority of the Lawrence school board as unethical and accused it of "dismantling our public schools" by cutting a number of programs.
Many Jews in the community, Orthodox and otherwise, found the use of the word Orthodox offensive - including us. While the dozens of you who called and e-mailed expressed outrage at the content of the ads, you were also angry, disappointed and disgusted with the Herald for running them. Why then did we accept these ads?
Before answering, we'd like to clarify a few things:
* First, an advertisement - whether for political candidates or a business - expresses the opinion of the people or business that purchased it. It is not the opinion of the newspaper, and its appearance in the paper is not an implied endorsement of its message.
If this were not the case, how could a newspaper run advertisements from competing candidates who hold diametrically opposed positions? The paper can't agree with them both. Should we censor all political advertising with which we disagree?
If you want to know the Nassau Herald's opinion, you need to read our editorials and endorsements, which appear each week on the editorial page.
* Second, newspapers are free to accept or reject any advertisement for any reason. So, did this ad "slip by," as some have suggested in our defense?
No. These ads were reviewed to make sure they weren't libelous and to see if they met our admittedly subjective standards governing what goes into the paper. For better or worse, we accept responsibility for running these ads. We hope that after reading this, you'll understand why we did, even if you don't agree with our decision.
* Finally, it is the Herald's policy not to accept anonymous political advertising. That's why a "paid for" line generally appears on the bottom of every political ad. That line was missing from the two ads in question, but they were hardly anonymous, as some have implied. ALPS, which paid for them, placed its candidates' names in large type at the bottom of the ads and freely admits to placing them. We regret that in our preoccupation with the content of the ad, we overlooked the missing attribution. It won't happen again.
One of the most important roles that newspapers play in our democracy is that of a forum for public debate - to provide, on a local level, the "marketplace of ideas" that the Founding Fathers thought essential for democracy to flourish. So, when we review political ads for appropriateness, we give advertisers the broadest possible latitude to say what they want, the way they want. Why? Because advertisements are the only place in the paper where candidates can make their case directly to readers without editing by the newspaper.
While we do our best to be objective and accurate when covering elections, not surprisingly, candidates sometimes feel that our coverage of them is inaccurate, inadequate or unfair. Political advertisements allow candidates to speak directly to readers in their own words. That's why, with rare exceptions, we run political ads as we receive them, even if we disagree with them or find them offensive.
Were these ads so offensive that they should have been censored? In court, when a judge decides whether the jury should hear a plaintiff's claim, he or she is required to look at all the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff-in other words, to give them the benefit of the doubt. That's a fair analogy to the way we review political ads to see if they should appear in the paper.
The ALPS ads don't exist in a vacuum. They are the latest installment of a long-running dispute between the "public-school community" and the "private-school community." Over the years, the battle lines between these two groups have become sharply drawn. Reasoned positions have taken a backseat to personal invective and the widespread belief that neither side gives a damn about the others' kids. Both sides have distorted the other's positions, and both have said and done things that were inflammatory and mean-spirited. There's more than enough blame and shame to go around.
The current outrage really boils down to the use of one word - the "O" word, as one e-mailer put it - Orthodox. Had the ads attacked the "private-school majority" on the board, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Given that members of the Orthodox community, including Orthodox members of the board, occasionally refer to themselves as "the Orthodox board members," we felt that the word could be viewed as a shorthand reference to the current board majority - the Orthodox majority. We've heard many people from both camps use the term this way, so we gave ALPS the benefit of the doubt.
The alternative was to view ALPS's decision to use the word as a broader statement that no Orthodox candidate could ever be an acceptable school board member regardless of his stand on the issues, simply by virtue of being an Orthodox Jew. You don't have to be Jewish or a student of history to understand why Jews of all stripes are particularly sensitive to even a hint of that sort of racism. It didn't seem reasonable to assume that the folks at ALPS who wrote these ads subscribed to such a racist view - many are Jewish themselves, after all.
We knew some of you might be offended by the ads, but in the end, we thought you should read what the candidates had written and decide for yourself what message they meant to convey. Better to be offended now than surprised later that you've voted for a bigot.
In hindsight, the breadth and depth of outrage that so many of you have expressed make us question the wisdom of our decision. We spoke to dozens of loyal readers who were deeply offended by these ads and our decision to run them. They made their points eloquently, forcefully and, for the most part, civilly. We clearly underestimated the depth of emotion the use of the word Orthodox would stir up. If the Herald is to continue to be the primary public forum in the Five Towns, we must distinguish between words that provoke people to think and respond and those that are so offensive that people simply tune out and stop reading. Based on the responses we received, we made the wrong call here.
But as we've said, these ads were not created in a vacuum. Both sides need to take a good look at themselves and what they've allowed to happen to this community. Among the calls and e-mails we received were many from people who were clearly unfamiliar with the Nassau Herald, our years of reporting on the public/private fight for control of the school board and our long record of journalistic integrity. They repeated variations on what they were instructed to say by e-mails quickly circulated in the religious community and calculated to get maximum mileage from the ads by giving them the worst possible spin.
Pam Greenbaum asserts that the ads did nothing more than refer to the Orthodox as they frequently refer to themselves in many contexts. She expressed surprise at the angry reaction.
The truth is that both sides have played the religion card and have urged people to vote along religious lines. Neither side misses an opportunity to demonize and stereotype the other for political advantage. It's very sad that in the name of wanting the best education for our children, we have given them the worst: We've taught them to hate.
It's not always easy to figure out the responsible course of action when covering a situation so fraught with anger and mistrust. If accepting these ads for publication contributed to this negative atmosphere, we are truly sorry. And, we reiterate, we were not reporting here, simply letting candidates for an important public office speak for themselves. Had we understood the depth of anger that the use of the O word would provoke, we probably would have asked ALPS to change the wording of its ads. As far as sending messages is concerned, if these ads have offended you, on Tuesday you can send Greenbaum, Cancelliere and Levey a message of your own.
Clifford Richner
Stuart Richner
