Thread by @MarcusBlimi

People are surprised I’m not vocal about frum magazines omitting women. Make no mistake, erasing women’s photos is a joke and if isn’t Judaism.

But I don’t get caught up in that battle because the trouble with chareidi frum publications is so much deeper than women’s photos.
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https://twitter.com/MeyerLabin/status/1366875019989708806

It’s terrible journalism full stop.

1. They don’t care about healthcare. Their healthcare columns are limited to Reader’s Digest-like sensationalized thrillers and diet advice.

During the measles outbreak, they skimmed over the issues of unvaccinated swaths of frum Jews,
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focusing their efforts on the resulting anti-semitism that occurred.

Clever. 🙄

When I begged @themishpacha if I could write an important column on the dangers of the measles virus and rectifying misinformation about the vaccine, I was told:

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Let’s repeat that:

in the midst of the biggest measles outbreak in recent history, occurring mainly in frum communities, landing frum children and pregnant women in ICUs across New York (that is a fact), @themishpacha “chose not to cover this topic at this time.”

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Let’s go back further to 2017 and bring @Ami_Magazine back into the discussion.

They printed this dangerous and hideous piece of misinformation on breast cancer and the BRCA gene mutation:

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Let’s not focus on the good that Dor Yeshorim does. Let’s focus on the damage this particular article did.

I responded to this article (my response was never published), so I shared it online, in the hopes of rectifying dangerous misinformation.

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Let’s talk about why a column full of lies about the HPV vaccine was allowed to be published in @themishpacha last year. They wouldn’t allow nurses to write about the measles during an outbreak, but a fallacious post about a cancer-preventing vaccine was allowed. Why?

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Now, where are the lies? Here:

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But don’t just take my word for it. See responses from frum providers here: facebook.com/729133452/post…

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While I acknowledge not everyone cares about misinformation, veiled information, or the health status of the frum community (and these are all intertwined of course), I do.

I find this lack of journalistic responsibility in the frum magazine world unforgivable.

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Imagine, if you will, that these publications allowed strong, prolific, frum writers to have evidence-based columns in which to share clear, unified messages on COVID-19, for example.

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Imagine if there were a no-nonsense approach to public health behaviors, during the measles, during COVID, about breast cancer. About so much more that needs to be discussed scientifically, without agendas by rabbis, organizations, or political leanings.

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Imagine if journalistic responsibility was a THING, particularly in a community that gets the bulk of their information from THESE PUBLICATIONS.

Imagine using the frum physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals that exist to improve health education during crises.

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Imagine the good it can do, the lives saved, the cancer cases averted, the decrease in chillul hashems caused by lack of science communication.

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(And the second reason these magazines are awful is the poor literary quality, and the third reason is because of their unremitting political slant that led to buses of frum Jews to travel to Washington to protest a stolen election that wasn’t stolen but I digress.)

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When they improve their columns, their content, their science writers, their responsibility to their readers and communities -

Then I’ll starting tweeting about women’s faces.

Fin.