Facts are such awkward things. This is especially true when dealing with complicated, emotional topics linked to religion.
Thus, there is a book by veteran reporter Mark Pinsky of Orlando, Fla., that religion-news specialists — or journalism students who are interested in the beat — needs to have on the shelf near their desks.
No, not “The Gospel According to the Simpsons” — although that’s a winner that I frequently recommend to seminarians interesting in decoding popular culture. In this case, I am referring to “A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.” The key to the book is it’s discussion of how people in one faith tradition, or no faith tradition at all, can learn to visit the minds, hearts and souls of other believers. The old-school journalism goal (#DUH) is to do coverage that is accurate, balanced and fair-minded.
It helps, of course, to talk to gatekeepers and shareholders in the group one is attempting to cover.
That leads me to a piece that Pinsky wrote the other day for The Forward that ran with this headline: “After an online ‘onslaught’ over exhibit on racial justice, a Florida Holocaust museum vows not to back down.”
This is one of those sad cases in which quick-strike, advocacy journalism trends seen so often in this digital age — on the left and the right — produced articles that were, at best, incomplete and slanted. In this case, the journalists were on the cultural right. It’s easy to find articles on the cultural left, of course. It’s tragically easy to find examples of this trend in the mainstream press.
Here is the overture of Pinsky’s piece:
In late November, the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida sparked outrage when it opened its current exhibition, “Uprooting Prejudice: Faces of Change.”
The bilingual exhibit, which runs through Jan. 31, consists of 45 large-format, black-and-white photo portraits. Chicago photographer John Noltner, a native of Minnesota, was inspired to take the shots in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing at and around the site where he died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.
Noltner offered the temporary exhibit to the Center, which had a hole in its schedule. The exhibit, said the Center’s assistant director Lisa Bachman, was “right in line with our mission.”
The photos are mounted on dark gray, carpeted walls lining two softly lit rooms. In each, the face of a single person fills the frame, along with a short text in the words of the multiracial subjects. In the second room, there is a slideshow of the photos, with additional text and softly playing music.
Many of the captions respond to prejudice, convey pain, hurt and fear, as well as some anger. One reads: “Let’s rebuild our community and stop looting our buildings. The message is not anarchy. The message is justice.”
The problems started with media reports that referred to this as a “George Floyd Exhibit.”
It’s possible to ask this hot-button question, “What is a George Floyd” exhibit doing in a Holocaust education center? That’s a rather loaded question.
However, it is also possible to ask, “What is an exhibit about prejudice and the evils of racism” doing in a Holocaust center?
At that point, there are facts that need to be reported. Pinsky reports the following — using easy-to-click material right off the center’s website:
The Holocaust Memorial and Education Resource Center of Florida was founded by survivor Tess Wise, who “believed that the lessons of the Holocaust provided a lens through which we could understand contemporary social and human rights issues.” …
In the Center’s mission statement, Wise wrote that the Center’s objective was to “build a just and caring community free of anti-Semitism and all forms of prejudice and bigotry.”
Thus, center leaders believe their educational work will, from time to time, take them into contemporary conflicts and issues.
That’s a subject worth covering and their would be lively voices on both sides to quote. But that isn’t what happened online. Here’s a sample of the rage, drawn from Pinsky’s piece in The Forward:
Martin Daubney (@MartinDaubney) called the exhibit “unbelievable. …To align Floyd’s tragic death with the massacre of 6 million Jews is hugely insensitive. But it’s also political: it positions police as Nazis. Awful decision.”
The right-wing website Breitbart called it “a tribute to Floyd” which attempts “a shocking parallel.” The Daily Caller said the exhibit was “dedicated” to Floyd. American Renaissance said the purpose of the exhibit was “to honor George Floyd.”
“To equate the Holocaust with other acts of racism in this country is a disgrace,” said Alex Grobman, co-author of Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?
Linda Olmert, a former board member at Yad Vashem, told World Israel News that the Orlando exhibit, “is in fact nothing less than a false quest for universalism that criminally diminishes the intransigent uncompromising racism toward the Jewish people.”
Now, there’s no way around the fact that this event was linked to the national uproar caused by Floyd’s death, as well as the legal protests and the illegal violence that followed in many cities.
However, Pinsky noted this essential fact that was missing in the edgy headlines: “George Floyd is not pictured or mentioned except in a list of hashtags in the slideshow, nor are the circumstances of his death.”
Thus, is it accurate to say that this is a “George Floyd exhibit”? It that the subject at the heart of these photos?
In an email last week, Pinsky told me that the online firestorm — with its implications for the center’s work and fundraising — could have been avoided “if the standard protocols of journalism had been observed, and the center had been called for comment.”
Would the exhibit still have been controversial, to some degree? Of course. Many subjects are controversial when they artists, writers or historians connect them to the Holocaust. That isn’t the journalism issue, in this case.
Why didn’t journalists call the center and ask relevant questions about the title and content of the exhibit?
UPDATE: Pinsky has continued his reporting on this issue with a piece at Religion News Service. The headline: “Does anyone ‘own’ the Holocaust? An Orlando controversy inflames the issue.”
After describing decades of debates about the use of “holocaust” language, Pinsky returns to the central issue in this case — in terms of journalism issues:
In this case, the controversy was sparked by the opening of the center’s current bilingual exhibition, “Uprooting Prejudice: Faces of Change,” which runs through Jan. 31.
Shot by Minneapolis photographer John Noltner in the aftermath of the May 25 killing of George Floyd by police, the exhibit consists of 45 large-format black-and-white photo portraits of racially diverse subjects, with a single moving quotation from the speaker.
However, neither Floyd himself nor the circumstances of his death appear in the exhibit, facts that eluded critics who neither visited the center nor contacted the staff for comment. …
National and international headline writers on the web called the center’s new offering a “George Floyd Exhibit,” which inflamed all the usual twitter suspects. …