The Political Compass of Jewish American NewsSources

 

The Purpose of this Chart (researched and crafted by me for you, fair reader) is to show you concrete information on the Jewish American Communities main sources of information and how they report according to ideas of being more pro-government, religious or cultural (or plain secular), or generally economically and governmentally left or right. Every paper shown above is amazing in its own way. Truly. Even if they (like all newspapers) have bias. In general, they also do better on the axis not shown above; showing the majority of good news in the world versus the minority bad which merits discussion to correct. I'll note this is more in comparison to most American news sources than correctly showing the discrepancy.

Notes for Nerds (of which their are a lot):

 To be considered a Jewish American Newsite for the Purpose of this Compass, you must pass four Criteria:

  

1. Have a primarily American Jewish Readership or cover Judaism in America, and be explicitly Jewish (culturally, religiously or both) in some capacity.

2. Have an English Section or Edition of your Newspaper.

3. Cover News and Developments in the Jewish Community.

4. Have some level of Original Content (articles or visuals created for the site or paper). This does not have to be the majority of content present. 

 

 Ironically and unavoidably, this map of bias in Jewish reporting has a little bias itself: There is a great amount of Jewish centrist and (to a lesser extent) center-right press. Because there are so many, some newspapers (Algemeiner, Israel Hayom, Ami, Detroit Jewish News, Atlanta Jewish Times and the Jerusalem Post) have moved a little too. With the exception of the Jerusalem post, all are a tad more right then they are in real life (and Detroit more Authoritarian). Tablet, which leans ever slightly more to the right about once in a blue moon, is also slightly more Libertarian than it actually is. Perhaps next time I'll make a 360-degree compass. 

On the subject of centrist and centre-right bias, I elected not to include two large news sources which might be expected for the left-wing, Haaretz and JewishCurrents. Haaretz is not shown because its readership is believed to be not majority Jewish (or only ethnically), and says very little about American Jews as a community day-to-day. JewishCurrents (or rather "Jewish" Currents) has a similar issue. It has almost nothing touching on Jewish culture or day-to-day life, and arguably has a small Jewish readership (nor does almost anything it writes touch on Jewish Americans). As a result of this, in the center of capitalist perversion *פֿאָרווערטס remains the bastion of the Jewish left by default! I will also note centrist papers likely have a overwhelmingly higher circulation (in no small part due to the Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post). Ami Magazine stands out as a right-wing magazine which definitely has very high readership in particular, claiming at least 200,000 papers sold weekly. This is not to say numbers are the most important thing, neither in terms of quality or impact. Forverts (which  outstripped the New York Times in Circulation during the 20's) has a large cultural footprint as a *centre of the leftist Jewish landscape, though most US Jews lean more liberal in terms of capitalism. In an appealingly similar contrast, Commentary Magazine has had a storied influence as a centre of the Neoconservative movement. With the Russification of the National Interest, and the National Reviews wider appeal to Conservatism beyond the supposed Neoism of Irving Kristol (which is another discussion altogether), it now stands as a bastion of Neoconservative thought in uncertain times for the movement and its ideology. The aforementioned Ami could be styled as the centre of the Orthodox, Jewish right everyone and their mother has been do interested in lately. The Jewish National Syndicate and Israel Hayom both owe their lives in no small part to Sheldon Adelson, part of his rightward vision for the Jewish world both less anti-Trump than Commentary and more Secular than *Ami. Tablet has and will continue to do whatever the fuck it wants, and I for one may even appreciate it.

  

This compass also omits many great newspapers (and websites!) for English-speaking Jews, American Jewry and the Jew-Charmed (or Jinterested) because they do not fit the criteria above. Some notables include Jews Down Under and J Wire (Austrozealish/Australasian News), the JC (British), Canadian Jewish News (even more obvious than Jews down under) and JBS TV/JTV (a video site). In America, I'll also note Unorthoboxed (for Frum Women, but neither one I have experience reading nor focused on local news), and Der Blatt (a US-centered Israel-souled Yiddish publication). There are also a litany of local Jewish papers (such as Columbus Jewish News in Ohio) which do amazing, amazing work which is critical for local communities and I fully expect to grow to greater stature in the future. For the sake of having a readable, accurate as possible compass, I have elected to only have local Jewish papers with a direct national impact on the world writ large. 

 

All the magazines shown (and all the Jewish magazines discussed) have amongst them great work for the Jewish community (and reporting on others). These have wonderful spiritual, cultural, politically and plain eccentric articles. And its amazing so many niches of Jewish geography and thought are filled (and that this isn't even the majority of either). Jewish news is fun, wacky, weird, spiritual and more, and thats the way I like it.

 Hopefully this helps give you knowledge to know what you read next to your Daf Yomi. Now go, Yiddishkeits, Yemeni's, and everyone in-between and beyond! Go and read Jewish news near and far! For breaking stories in future history will follow you wherever you are! After all, if you're reading this you're probably making it.

*How else would you have arranged it next to English, smart thoughts? Also, Jewish Rightists, I'm not a Communist, so lets not cancel fellow Tribesmen for a joke, eh?

*Yes, I used British spelling in an article about American Judaism.

*The fact looking his name up finds a conspiracy from "anti-interventionists" of Adelson being proof of the Elders of Zion style conspiracy Elder of Zion was made to poke fun at. It shows how successful he was at being the boogeyman of conspiratorial left (and Arab right), that his extremely public actions in an open marketplace of views which consistently assaults him are proof of a secret conspiracy. After all, Iran may spend billions (conservatively) on expensive anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-American propaganda (all of which are linked), Henry Ford may have spent lavishly on anti-Jewish conspiracies, but pro-Israel activism! That's a million times worse! And while billionaires may spend billions on all kinds of political causes (including some against Adelson), a Jew doing it? Horrifying!