"If we’d live and act with the awareness that we’re ambassadors, a lot of the problematic images that have the secular shreying gevalt could have been averted"
I don’t think a journalist who’s an outsider can really understand what makes us tick. Far more detrimental, however, is the trend these days where the secular media brings a journalist from our community to cover the chareidi beat. A secular journalist who’s clueless will at least make a sincere effort to understand, but when one of our own is assigned to cover chareidi affairs, they often give more than what they were asked for. As a result, they do a much better job of bringing the “goods.” It’s a problem when you have a young chareidi whippersnapper, 18 years old, who thinks that the world started when he was born, assigned to covering the most sensitive topics, and who brings in juicy neiyas. There do exist chareidi journalists in the general media who are capable of properly representing our community, but they’re few and far between. Generally speaking, it’s a difficult balance for a chareidi journalist to strike. I know because I used to work for Army Radio (Galei Tzahal), and I chose to stop working for secular media for that reason.
But the topic is far more complex. I’ve noticed that the general media follows the chareidi media and picks up a lot of material from there. The emergence of an independent chareidi media that has a presence both in print and online necessitates far more responsibility and attentiveness. Every word that’s printed or posted is viewed not only by sympathetic eyes. Just like the army has a military censor, we also need a censor to prevent the publication of material that could cause a misunderstanding at best, and chillul Hashem at worst. To this end, I would recommend the establishment of a professional chareidi hasbarah forum that would determine who is allowed to speak on behalf of the community.
Every Jew who is shomer Torah u’mitzvos is a potential ambassador through his very presence. You don’t need any special characteristics or rhetorical skills. The question is, where can the average chiloni encounter such an ambassador?
By definition, an ambassador resides outside his own country. Just as the Israeli ambassador exerts his influence outside of Israel, the chareidi can act as an ambassador only if he interacts with the general population, outside chareidi enclaves.
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