Low-Hanging Fruit

MY association with this magazine is a couple of decades old, baruch Hashem, and one of the nicer features of the relationship is the lack of a journalistic agenda.

In the wider world, media has discovered its own power. The theory of “media salience” proposes that some issues are not so important to the public, but by consistently focusing on them, the media gives them significance. So, for example, even if readers don’t have strong feelings about global warming, the media can make them believe that it is a pressing problem, and this will affect how they vote, or where they allocate their energy or resources.

At this magazine, the starting point of any position is that it is firmly rooted in Shulchan Aruch, mesorah, and the viewpoint of contemporary gedolim, but outside of that, there is no agenda. Still, sometimes there is a sustained focus on a particular topic, and that itself — even if it’s not exactly an agenda — can turn a small problem into a much bigger one.

Before I continue, a serious trigger warning: I know this topic is sensitive, and that it provokes people, so I want to make clear that I do not believe vaping is safe.