Discrimination Issues in Publication Design

Today, I will post about one issue that had happened few months back. To be emphasize, it is about gender discrimination especially women discrimination in this case.

Here comes the story. During May, an Orthodox Jewish newspaper in Booklyn, United States called “Di Tzeitung”, had removed two women public figure from a photo that was taken when Mr Barack Obama, the president of United States and his staff were monitoring the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The public figures involved are Hillary Clinton, the secretary of United States and Audrey Tomason, the counterterrosim director of United States.

                                          *Edited version
                                          (source:http://www.guardian.co.uk)

The images attached above illustrated the actual position of where Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason were supposed to be. Although the particular newspaper had sent its apologies to the White House, the photo removal action had triggered heavy criticism from the public that do not agree on what had done by the photo editor of Di Tzeitung. Di Tzeitung issued a statement to clarify that the photo editor did not read the rules and regulation mentioned photo editors are not allowed to make any changes on the photo taken that related to White House (The Guardian 2011).

                                         *Original version

                                         (source:http://www.guardian.co.uk)

Things would not happen without a reason. According to a managing editor that has covered Jewish issues since 1980, the action to remove women from the photo was mainly because some ultra-Orthodox Jews beliefs that showing images of the female form is “immodest” (Lil Swanson cited in TheGuardian 2011). Besides, Di Tzeitung also explained that the Jewish law of modesty is an expression of respect for women, not the opposite. In fact, it does not work like this, Lobo and Cabecinhas (2011) argue that by being absent from the news or portrayed in secondary and passive roles, women's voices are devalued and their right to access communication within the public sphere is denied.

In my opinion, women discrimination is happening across the world, but not to the extent to stop women from public appearance. In the modern era where people are starting to accept women as their leaders (eg, Thailand), such incident should not have happened now. Ethically, no people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (Irby 2003). However, the rules and regulation of news content that aiming at stopping women discrimination is necessary to eliminates women's disadvantages in their access to the public sphere.

Reference list

Irby K, New York Times Guidelines on Our Integrity, Poynter.Org 05 September 2011, viewed 15th November 2011,

<http://www.poynter.org/uncategorized/15454/new-york-times-guidelines-on-our-integrity/>.

The Guardian 2011, ‘Orthodox Jewish Paper Apologises for Hillary Clinton Deletion’, Associated Press, 10 May, viewed 5 November 2011,
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/10/jewish-paper-apologises-hillary-clinton>.

Lobo, P & Cabecinhas, R 2010, ‘The Negotiation of Meanings in the Evening News: Towards an Understanding of Gender Disadvantages in the Access to the Public Debate’, International Communication Gazette, vol. 72, no. 4-5, pp. 339-358, viewed 5 November 2011, <http://gaz.sagepub.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/content/72/4-5/339.full.pdf+html>.