Jewish News calendar - only 3 years out!

(Unsurprisingly,) last week's AJN messed up big time in both editions.

The people who brought you "Tzetz Chaim" inform us - via their "Jewish Festivals" calendar insert - that the new Hebrew year was תשס''ט - only 3 years out.

As any child attending a Jewish school could've told them, the correct year is actually תשע''ב.

"Jewish" News indeed!

Vox Pop suggestion for the AJN

We are again mightily impressed with the Jewish News' concerns for Kashrut. And that is why we make the suggestion that for a future Vox Pop they ask members of the community about their views regarding the nation's "Jewish" newspaper advertising and publicising Treif establishments and products.

How about it?

Another Jewish News editor bites the dust...

Who caused this? "Hamodia' or 'AJN Watch'...?


From J-Wire:

Change at the helm of the AJN
August 21, 2009 by Henry Benjamin

Ashley Browne, the current editor of the Australian Jewish News will oversee his last edition of the national Jewish weekly paper next week.

The 44-yr-old Melbourne-based newspaperman has spent the last two and a half years as its editor. He told J-Wire: ”It has been a privilege to have worked as editor of the AJN and I have enjoyed my time here. I wish the incoming editor and all the AJN staff the very best for the future.

Browne told J-Wire that he did not know who the knew editor would be but there may be a possibility that the position might be taken up by an overseas contender.

While few will be surprised to see Browne being let go, it is a fact that the AJN goes through editors like a losing footy club goes through coaches.
We can't remember all of them but some recent editorial has-beens include (in no particular order) Sam Lipski, Deborah Stone, David Bernstein, Vic Alhadeff, Dan Goldberg, Susan Bures and now Ashley Browne.

Let's see what the AJN management comes up with next.

Australian Jewish News, Australian Goyish News or Australian Gayish News?

Anyone reading this week's edition of the AJN will be wondering if he/she didn't mistakenly pick up a copy of the "Australian Gayish News". Why?

Because there are no less than 9 items(!) about the AJN’s current sweethearts – the homosexuals (or to use the full label - “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transvestites”).

Yes – 9, including the ENTIRE front page, an editorial (where naturally blame for the killings in Tel Aviv is insinuated upon the ‘ultra-orthodox’)...


...a couple of repeat letters from the usual Torah-hating, gay-loving, single-issue-obsessed letter-writers (see top right) and of course a Kron cartoon.

Additionally, editor Ashley Browne in his blog uses the gay killings to assail the Hamodia newspaper. (That's the second time in 4 weeks that the Hamodia has been attacked in the AJN. Looks like this upstart weekly a biting deeply into the AJN’s sales and advertising revenue.)

The world according to Hamodia:
no gays, no murder

ASHLEY BROWNE

The shooting attack in a gay community centre in Tel Aviv on Saturday night that killed two people is creating a huge stir in Israel.
This should come as no surprise. Disregarding the Orthodox population, Israel is one of the more gay-friendly countries in the world and you don’t have to spend too much time in the more vibrant sections of Tel Aviv to become aware of a strong and tolerant gay culture.
AJN columnist Haviv Rettig Gur updated his Facebook status yesterday to say that the shooting was “a reminder that when the peace process with the Arabs ends, there are some culture wars to be won inside our country.”
The Israeli media is all over this story - as is the world media - with one notable exception. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Orthodox newspaper Hamodia, has pulled the bedsheet over its head, closed its eyes, blocked its ears and is pretending that the story did not happen.
That’s right. No gays. No murder.
And yes, this is the same newspaper that a section of the Australian Jewish community believes should become our community’s paper of record.

Just like Browne and Bersten, we too have no idea who the TA gays killer is. But there is as much a chance - in fact far greater - that it was another homosexual (jealous lover's tiff, maybe) as it being the work of an 'ultra-orthodox'. But that shouldn't and doesn't hold back Browne from taking an opportunity to smear frum Jews.

And we would advise Ashley to leave the Hamodia alone. They know EXACTLY what they are doing and understand the audience that they are catering to. The last thing their readers are interested in is what is happening in Tel Aviv snakepits of dreck and perversion.

At the time that you struggle to fill a few miserly pages of your paper with anything newsworthy – thus sinking to a new low with 9 items extolling and supporting TA homosexuals, the Hamodia (even the fledgling Australian edition) carries 4 or 5 times as much Israeli, world and Jewish news and features as does the AJN. In fact, the only half-decent reporting one finds in the Jewish News are the articles that you copy and paste from the Jerusalem Post. Sadly for you, even that is a waste of time and newsprint. Anyone who is interested has already read these on the JPost.com website. People no longer wait a week to read your “plagiarism”.

Your comment that “Israel is one of the more gay-friendly countries in the world and you don’t have to spend too much time in the more vibrant sections of Tel Aviv to become aware of a strong and tolerant gay culture” indeed nauseates, depresses and disgusts not only Hamodia readers, but all decent, civilized and moral people - of all religious beliefs. Your pride and delight that Israel has become a world-leader in depravity and debasement says much about you and your publication.

As for Ian Bersten's repetitive attacks on the Torah and his predictable idiotic comments again proves that this man is a total ignoramus as well as an apikorus (if an ignoramus can qualify for this title.)

AJN hypocrisy

Charming to see the AJN commenting that the Age's irrelevant mention of the Leifer affair.

This is from the same newspaper that beat up the original story into a appalling and lurid sensation. And long after the rest of the Australian media stopped mentioning it, the AJN continued to rehash it week after week – ad nauseum.

Pity that there isn’t a Walkley Award for hypocrisy – the Jewish News would be the front runner.

"The Jewish News isn’t a newspaper based on circulation"

Forging a new identity
Editor's Blog ASHLEY BROWNE

THE doomsayers will tell you that the clock is ticking on newspapers, and that within 10 years, newspapers might be obsolete. These doomsayers tell us that we will be consuming our news on the internet and increasingly on our Blackberrys, iPhones and other cool devices. Convention now tell us that young people don’t read newspapers at all and the blogosphere is full of a story about a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley’s London office, Matthew Robson, whose report on teenage media habits spelled further gloom for the newspaper industry.

It is in these challenging times that we at the AJN launch our new website. It is more visual than before, gives more prominence to our multimedia content and engages in social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter like never before. The challenge here at the AJN is how to grow our brand in the online space without compromising our 115-year history as a newspaper.

The Jewish News isn’t a newspaper based on circulation - we like to talk about readership here because we know the paper gets passed around. Three families might read one copy of the paper, particularly during Shabbat. Using that statistic, a significantly large percentage of the community read our newspaper.

So what to do? We are planning to break more news on our website and in most cases, we won’t be won’t be waiting for the print edition of the newspaper to publish our main stories. But the news component of the paper will remain strong because we know we have many elderly readers for whom newspapers remain their their first and most trusted source of news from our community and Israel.

And we’ll save some of the best features, opinion and analysis for the newspaper and then online. And the whites and blacks (simcha and death announcements) will appear first in the newspaper for the considerable future. But we’ll be working hard to engage Gen Y and Gen Z (yes, my 14-year-old daughter tells me her generation now has a label) through Twitter, Facebook and other emerging social media. Now and as always, we want you to tell us how we can make the AJN talk best to you. And send us your photos, your stories, your tweets and your updates.
http://jewishnews.net.au/2009/07/15/forging-a-new-identity/

The future doesn't look too promising, does it?
AJN is not based on circulation? Yeah, try and tell that to savvy advertising agencies and see how far you'll get.

Years ago, when they had more respectable readership figures, the AJN circulation was voluntarily audited by an organisation still used by other publications. These days, of course, it would quite rash to reveal how low the figures have really sunken to.

As we've mentioned previously, the cut and paste jobs from the Jerusalem Post website isn't going to encourage anyone to spend $3.50. Nor the regurgitated media releases supplied by Jewish organisations and neither the PRW, which arrives - free -in everyone's letter box weekly - together with the rest of the junkmail.

Looks like it's up to the "whites and blacks" to save the AJN.

We'll be watching with interest.

When Kron got it right!

A helpful reader of this blog has offered to share his archives of AJN cuttings accumulated over the years. These include offensive cartoons by AJN staff caricaturist Kron, which at the time of their publication upset many.

But for today we bring you a work by Kron which aptly depicts what this blog is all about!

Guest Post: The thoughts of a long-time AJN reader

AJN Watch is proud to publish our first guest post.
We invite our readers to submit their posts and comments.

GUEST POST
by Old-Timer

I thank the blogmasters for allowing me to join them as an irregular poster here and look forward to offering my thoughts about the standards of reporting in the AJN.

As my name divulges, I have been around for a long time and despite my general repulsion of much what I see in that newspaper, I am a news junkie and just cannot help myself reading it weekly. Belive me, it pains me that I am financially supporting the hand that so often strikes me and those close to me. A few good slaps back at them are long overdue. So thank you AJN Watch.

There is much to be said about the huge difference in AJN’s reporting (or more often non-reporting) of scandals and negative occurrences in the community. When these relate to religious Jews the AJN carries on mercilessly. However when rich and important figures who are not well known for their observance of our faith it may get a few lines, or in many cases not a single word.

Cast your memory back to about 7-8 years ago when a certain former president of a frum Shul was in the news, Who can forget the nasty and vicious coverage the AJN gave that story which at the same time guaranteed that every single Jew who ever had anything to do with that Shul community felt that he/she was being personally smeared by the relentless and disgusting articles – week after week.

It was around that time that a person of major note in the community, but with no claims to religiosity, was being featured in the general media with some truly ‘juicy’ personal scandal. There isn’t the slightest comparison of that personage to the humble ex-shul head. But did the AJN sensationalise the revelations of this person? Of course not. Not a single line in their paper.

Or take the case of another important and well-known communal figure who was charged and found guilty of offences involving hundreds of millions of dollars – lost by investors large and small. This story too, featured on the news and finance pages of every newspaper in the country…except the AJN. Not a SINGLE word. The charges against Rabbi Engel are a zilch compared to what this gentleman was found guilty of. But anyone reading our Jewish ‘newspaper of record’ would never had known. In that case, in addition to not being (at least knowin to be) part of the frum community, the other great advatagge for this individual wasl that the AJN was owned and run by close relatives. They obviously had no intention to add shame to the family. And that would be very understandable – had they had such feelings for the families of other members of the community who happen to have a relative in trouble. But the AJN has no such concerns at all for families of religious Jews and often hurts their families and even entire communities.

This type of ‘religious-anti-Semitism’ actually warrants a proper examination by some major media investigative source, eg, The Age or the TV program Media Watch. But until that happens I appreciative this new AJN Watch blog, which hopefully will – if not achieve in keeping the AJN bastards honest – at least expose their hypocrisy and double standards and their targeting of a certain powerless segment of Australian Jewry.

To help achieve this, visitors to this site should spread the word and the link – especially to any connections to the wider media.

Letters to the editor re "Charged" front page

Here's a selection of 'Letters to the editor' in last week's AJN by readers who are obviously as upset as we are.

Last week’s cover

IS there no other news to print on the front page of the newspaper (AJN 19/06)?Do we have to display so openly events that bring us nothing but shame and disgrace?A large number of our community, myself included, are greatly disgusted both with the Adelaide rabbi’s actions and with the current display of that ugly event on the first page of The AJN.Many of the Elsternwick newsagents – not exactly friends of ours – pointed out this page with their great pleasure to their customers.A smaller article inside the newspaper would have been more than sufficient.

HELEN LEPERERE
Elsternwick, Vic

Not page one worthy

WHAT is your aim in showing us a full front page of newspaper devoted to a photograph of a disgraced rabbi (AJN 19/06)? How does this help us as a community? Certainly it is newsworthy, but it should be in small print inside the paper. Surely there are more important items for the front page, hopefully more than one item of interest, from our vibrant community at home and overseas. Your decision reeks of self-centred sensationalism, and I would have hoped your ethics and aims were higher than that that your priorities in evaluating the portrayal of different items would have thought of encouraging collective pride and highlighting opportunities for improvement, never forgetting the impact of the newspaper on our non-Jewish neighbours, friends and foes. The AJN has been a great newspaper for a long time, and I expect it to go forward, not backward, and reflect good journalism with balance and sensitivity.

ELIZABETH LEVY
Bellevue Hill, NSW

Preferring The Age

SHOULD The Jewish News be better referred to as “the Anti-Jewish News”? The front page gleefully shouts “Charged” about Rabbi Engel of Adelaide, surely a serial killer, or so one might think. Then a full-page article on brit milah, a mitzvah held dear by the majority of Jews, which is headlined: “Mitzvah or mutilation?” I believe we (Jews) would be better treated by even, dare I say, The Age?

ELLA BLESOFSKY
St Kilda East, Vic

Sensationalism

WE were absolutely disgusted by the sensationalism your paper indulged in by splashing Adelaide Rabbi Yossi Engel’s photo and caption across the front page of this week’s AJN (19/06). Surely more fuel for anti-Semitism. Surely your editors realise that the paper is seen by all and sundry in the numerous newsagencies that stock it. It is not a paper that relies purely on subscription and home delivery.

FRANKIE AND RAYMOND GARFIELD
North Bondi, NSW

Calling on our Sydney readers!

AJN Watch is based in Melbourne and currently has no Sydney representatives. The only material that we can access out of Sydney is what we find on the AJN website, which, as with the Melbourne edition, is not much.

(Unlike other newspapers which have comprehensive online editions, the AJN realises that they cannot allow this, as their hard-copy sale figures would plummet. Whilst other media sources _ Jewish and non-Jewish are reaping big bucks from online advertising, it seems that businesses have given the AJN the thumbs down. Just check out how little advertising their site has.)

Thus we make a special request to our Sydney visitors, please scan and forward any items that you feel may need addressing. We appreciate your help.

"Charged"

While most members of the Australian Jewry were appalled and sickened at the sensationalism of the front page of last week’s newspaper, many religious Jews just shrugged their shoulders and stated the obvious: “Nu, what can we expect from our self-hating anti-semitic mamzerim”. After all, this is not the first time that the Jewish News has done all in its power to besmirch and slander the face of frum Jews and if nothing is done about it - neither the last time.

As one prominent rabbi stated: “The Zionists have Antony Loewenstein and we have the Jewish News”. While both are outstanding examples of Jewish self-hatred, the AJN in constantly attacking Loewenstein is also guilty of hypocrisy and duplicity.

For the so-called voice of Australian Jewry to so recklessly and idiotically supply fodder to every Nazi and anti-semitic website in the world is simply sickening - even according to their bottom-scraping standards. Check out the Jew-hater's websites and you'll find most of them gleefully linking and quoting from the Australian Jewish News - helping them confirm their hate-propaganda about Jews and rabbis being swindlers and thieves. If the AJN is aiming to increasing anti-semitism worldwide, it is indeed being very successful.

If Chabad communities all over Australia - as well as the orthodox Synagogues - had any pride or self-respect, they would place a ban on all advertising - communal, business and personal on the AJN both their own and of their constituents - until the accepted minimal standards. It is a colossal Chilul Hashem seeing "Stuermer'-style rabbinical vilification on one page and advertisements placed by religious/Chassidic organizations on another.

The AJN ought to be ashamed of itself, but the orthodox community should not sit back and turn the other cheek.

Welcome to AJN Watch

Welcome to the AJN Watch blog which we hope will develop into an important element in debate and thought for our communities.

There has long been a need felt amongst many Australian Jews for a site where they can vent their anger and exasperation at various objectionable and unworthy aspects of the almost-monopolistic Australian Jewish News. However, besides 'kvetching', very little has been done to bring these complaints to the attention of the broader Jewish – and indeed, non-Jewish - community. (We write “almost-monopolistic” as Baruch Hashem in the past year or so, we have welcomed the arrival of an Australian edition of the international Jewish weekly newspaper the Hamodia, which seems to be making major inroads in this country. We hope to elaborate about the Hamodia phenomenon in some future post.)

The past few years the AJN has published items, which had the Age or the Sydney Morning Herald given it similar treatment, all hell would’ve broken loose amongst our communal organizations (and no doubt the AJN would have moralized and editorialized about the anti-Semitic slant of those newspapers.)

But when the offender is the Australian Jewish News – no matter how appalling, there is an absolute silence from our community leaders (except of course from those associated with the aggrieved party/ies.)

Unlike other Jewish centers of population, where there are multiple media outlets available to the community, here in Australia we are at the absolute mercy of the editor and/or publisher of the AJN, who decides on which personalities they will let fly with the worst possible levels of legally-permissible ‘slander’ and, on the other hand, whose sins and crimes they will close their eyes to. And those that the AJN deserve vilification, there isn’t a shred of concern that in addition to hurting family and friends, they may be tarnishing entire organizations and communities by their portrayal of their alleged prey. It is not of the slightest concern for these purveyors of ‘truth and justice’ that they may be doing untold harm to innocent groups who are there to help and work in the community. No, the AJN doesn’t give a heck. Their style may be labeled as yellow journalism at its worst. Their choice of eye-catching exaggerations, scandal-mongering and sensationalism accompanied by huge headlines to sell more newspapers.

Of course where it is regarding someone close to them, even where a person has been found guilty and even jailed – not a word! (More about that too at some time in the future.)

Establishing the AJN Watch blog has long been under consideration, but has been delayed time and again. However, following last weeks shameful and disgusting treatment of the Rabbi Engel affair we resolved “Lo eit lachashot” – it is not a time to remain silent. (Read our separate post about this.). So here we are and we look forward to your participation.

As mentioned, there is plenty to comment about in the AJN and we hope to bring such material to the attention of our readers.

We invite, nay, urge, everyone to partake in this task and ask that you send us items which we may have overlooked as well as your comments and ideas.

And while we understand that there are plenty of you out there who are quite livid about pieces that newspaper, we ask that all comments be reasoned, and written in polite language. Comments that we feel are of more importance will be ‘upgraded’ into posts – for further responses.

And we request, please bear with us. We are neither experienced writers nor bloggers. We hope to learn on the job. Your advice and input is welcome.