According to some accounts that have appeared around the world, it seems as if Hillary Clinton had almost been removed from history by a Jewish publication that had chosen to cut her out out of a White House photo showing her along with other top administration officials watching the raid in Pakistan that killed the world’s infamous number one terrorist leader Osama bin Laden on May 1.
The Di Tzeitung publication that had cut out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason
In addition to Clinton being removed, the Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper Di Tzeitung also cut out counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason from the photograph that appeared on the cover of the front page. In its defense, the Di Tzeitung insisted that its religious beliefs prevent them from publishing any photos of women because it may put them in a sexually suggestive light.
“In accord with our religious beliefs, we do not publish photos of women, which in no way relegates them to a lower status,” the newspaper explained in a prepared statement. “Because of laws of modesty, we are not allowed to publish pictures of women, and we regret if this gives an impression of disparaging to women, which is certainly never our intention.”
The original White House photo that pictures Hillary Clinton (second from right) and Audrey Tomason (sixth from right)
Although the initial problem arises in the fact that the publication had altered a photo that the White House had specifically forbade anyone from doing so, the issue at hand is much more greater than that. For any journalism ethicist, this incident seems to raise a very fundamental question: To what extent should religious beliefs should decisions be made in reporting the truth. Despite the fact that this particular incident involves the alteration of a photo for public consumption, the issue is still just as relevant. At issue are the protections inherently provided by the First Amendment — the very law that journalists have been staunchly fighting for over the past decade.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Although the law itself does provide for a free press, the issue is whether that same law can allow the exercise of religious practices to override journalistic integrity. In almost any photojournalism class, there will always be that lecture about photo alteration and the ethical repercussions of placing it in the paper. In Dan Morrison’s photojournalism class, he made this point very clear when he explained to us that almost any alternation made, including lightening or darkening a photo to make it more clear to audiences, is ethically wrong to place in a paper for publication, because it manipulates the true image and can therefore significantly damage the publication’s journalistic integrity. For those photojournalists that did manipulate images, the consequences have been severe — many were immediately fired by their respective publication or seemingly placed on a banned list in which they would be unable to find work at any legitimate publication.
What makes this particular incident particularly interesting is the fact that both freedoms have enjoyed a significant amount of protection over the years. So, for many ethicists, the question is whether one freedom should outweigh the other. In either case, there really is no compromise in this matter; there can only be one winner.
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