Diversity at Work

Mention the name Bernard Madoff and words like "fraud," "money" and "Wall Street" probably come to mind. For many in the Jewish community, however, the Madoff scandal isn't just a story that details a major scam; it's a story that fuels ignorance about centuries-old stereotypes.

Madoff, who is Jewish, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Jewish causes, which suffered significant financial losses as a result of his wrongdoings. He committed what's called an "affinity fraud" -- a scheme in which con-artists target their own ethnic, religious or professional groups.

Given the nature of such a fraud, those covering the Madoff case are faced with a challenging question: How do you report on the religion/ethnicity of a criminal and the group he's affected without making it seem as though you're perpetuating stereotypes?

One way to address this challenge is to provide context and background in stories. Another is to be transparent about audience members' concerns. The New York Times ran a letter to the editor earlier this week that criticized its coverage of Madoff. In the letter, David Harris, director of the American Jewish Committee, expressed his concern about the "striking emphasis" the Times put on Madoff's religion in one of its stories. Harris wrote:


In an e-mail interview with Poynter, Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt said he received just two messages complaining that the Times put too much emphasis on Madoff's religion.

"My own sense of the coverage," Hoyt said, "is that it has been unblinking in looking at the religious aspect of the case -- after all many of his victims were Jewish charities, a Jewish university and people he met through Jewish social connections -- but the newspaper has also tried to be sensitive and not to fuel stereotypes."

Hoyt said one quote from an anonymous fund executive in the same article mentioned above caused him to wince. The quote read: "There was a joke around that Bernie was actually the Jewish T-bill."

"I thought that was gratuitous and should have been edited out," Hoyt said. "But I think that there is no way this case could have been covered responsibly without reference to religion. Yes, the perpetrator was Jewish, but so were many if not most of the victims."

It makes sense, then, that religion would be a part of journalists' coverage, and that people would have mixed reactions to it. Providing context and background about the origins of these mixed reactions can help readers, viewers and listeners understand why people might be getting upset about the coverage.

The Associated Press did a good job of this in a recent article that addressed the Jewish community's fears about the Madoff case being wrought with anti-Semitism. The article points out that frauds involving religious-based groups are not new:

It goes on to talk about why many Jewish people are worried about the Madoff case, and journalists' coverage of it:

Since Jews served as lenders in medieval Europe, where they were barred from many other occupations, they have sometimes been portrayed as miserly, greedy and obsessed with money. In just one example, Shakespeare's Shylock, the Jewish character who demands a pound of flesh in payment for a loan in "The Merchant of Venice," has become synonymous with usury.

The New York Times also ran a story about the Jewish community's response to Madoff's scheme, and provided context about why they are upset:

In addition to theft, the Torah discusses another kind of stealing, geneivat da'at, the Hebrew term for deception or stealing someone's mind. "In the rabbinic mind-set, he's guilty of two sins: one is theft, and the other is deception," said Burton L. Visotzky, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

These insights go beyond the breaking news stories and Web updates; they provide context about the response to a major story, and they address complicated issues rather than avoiding them. By addressing them, journalists create the kind of discernment and understanding that comes from a willingness to learn about religions that are different from our own.