1 - This is an interesting but problematic piece by @avitalrachel on Jacob Kornbluh. Kornbluh is hasid who tried to enforce/promote social distancing in the Hasidic community. https://forward.com/life/447274/a-prophet-in-his-own-city-jacob-kornbluh/

2 - Avital’s central point is that the religious community censors its whistleblower journalists and tries to keep things under the rug.

This is true. However…

3 - When Mr. Jacob Kornbluh files complaints with the city, against fellow Hasidim, for praying; does it count for whistleblower journalism? Or is it overreach?

4 - Here is this type of journalism:

Avital and Kornbluh go to stuffy journalist shindigs with Big People & where credentialism reigns supreme & where everyone takes themselves very seriously. That’s the perfect culture for groupthink and conformity.

5 - There is a tremendous amount of conformity around the lockdown. Conformity among journalists. Conformity among frum-fancy (& OTD) voices.

None of them question the premise: are these draconian measures justified?

They only ask: are the rules being observed well enough?

6 - Maybe you all are wrong? Maybe the lockdown will do much more harm and the people are right to defy it? Maybe your eagerness to be “pro-science” and with the cool kids has made you accept a course of action uncritically? Maybe it’s not your job to defend the government?

7 - From where I sit, journalism lost sight of its objective: to probe. To speak truth to power, secular as well as religious.

A lot of criticism of journalism is warranted (although of course not the abuse)

Ya’all aint no prophets.

8 - I get that journos are frustrated when the frum community silences them. So at the very least, how about in the secular world — don’t silence lockdown dissent? Take the other side seriously?

Epilogue: (ha)

On the subject of all fancy people being pro-lockdown, it’s feeling might lonesome in the OTD lockdown skeptic community of 1. Find me just one other OTD lockdown skeptic and I will give you... a titanium ingot...? (I’m playing subnautica...this is what I have)