Town HallJanuary 16th 2014

Freedom of the Pressvs.

Maintaining Respect

LAST WEEK, THE NEW YORK POST PRODUCED THIS

HEADLINE...

•On Friday, January 3rd, Menachem Stark was found burned in a trash can.

•The New York resident, whom the paper called “a millionaire Hasidic slumlord,” was involved in several real-estate transactions and was in deep debt.

•“The New York TIMES ran a story about Stark with the headline, “A Developer Is Mourned and Vilified in Brooklyn,” which presents Stark as a man who was loved by his family and community, but who also had a contentious, complicated relationship with many, many others. In content, it is not so different from what the Post said. In style, it is worlds apart.”

Questions to Consider...•Should the Press be given the freedom

to make such bold statements? (specifically about death.)

•Should there be a line that is drawn?• Is it morally permissible for the New

York Post to compose this headline? •Should an “awful” human-being’s

death be celebrated? •Was this an act of anti-semitism or

anti-evildoer?