Yellow Journalism Is Alive And Well

Disingenuous reporting isn’t always about what is written. It is also very much about what is NOT written.

I was reading about the death of Marcel Marceau in today’s National Post Newspaper (September 24, 2007). It covered Marceau’s age, his craft, where he was born (Strasbourg), and that his father was a butcher.

And by the time the war came, that his father was taken hostage and later killed by the invading Nazis.

This is the story as it is portrayed by the Reuters News Service.

Why was Marcel Marceau’s father taken hostage? Who took him hostage? Why did the Nazis kill him? Why would someone during the Nazi period want to kidnap a butcher? Why didn’t Reuters answer these questions since they made them part of their article?

MAYBE BECAUSE MARCEL MARCEAU’S FATHER WAS JEWISH? Maybe it was because Marcel Marceau’s father wasn’t JUST a butcher, but was a KOSHER butcher?

Why did Reuters fail to “mention” that the father of Marcel Marceau was not “just” killed by the Nazis, but was in fact murdered by them in Auschwitz in 1944?

The fact that Marcel Marceau was Jewish is no small item in his life and his life’s-story. IT WAS HIS LIFE! IT WAS HIS STORY! And it should have been a major part of the Reuters story too.

Why didn’t Reuters mention that Marcel Marceau’s real name was Marcel Mangel? And that he didn’t just join the French resistance during the war, but joined the French resistance to save Jewish children from being murdered by the Nazis?

Why did Reuters lie about Marcel Marceau by withholding the truth?

Is this not yellow journalism?

Is this not anti-Semitism?

Marceau changed his name and disguised his religion to survive.

He adopted his onstage white-faced silent caricature Bip, which reflected a great deal about his past. Marceau was quick to tell about the influence his life under Nazism played in his onstage character that always looked sad, and wore a wilted rose.

To me, there is only one reason for Reuters to lie in their story about the world’s greatest mime. Reuters did not want people to know that he was Jewish.

As for Marcel Marceau’s father; he wasn’t taken hostage as Reuters wrote in their article. He was simply a Jew who was murdered in the Holocaust just like the other 6 million who were murdered, because they too were Jews.

Reuters couldn’t even bring themselves to get that right.

What the Nazis denied Marcel Marceau in life. Reuters denied Marcel Marceau in death.

Reuters denied Marcel Marceau his right to have a normal Jewish identity. Even in death.

It should also be noted that Reuters uses this same brand of anti-Semitic journalism when reporting on the Middle East and Israel.