Samuel G. Freedman has a piece in today's NY Times profiling Rabbi Morris Allen and the Conservative Movement's Hechsher Tzedek. Freedman mentions the allegations against Rubashkin, but does not mention any related information. He does not mention the PETA scandal (and the NY Times broke that story), does not mention the EPA scandal, does not mention Aaron Rubashkin's related legal troubles, National Labor Relations Board decisions, or the like. It is as if the issue of worker abuse had dropped from the sky. Freedman does not even mention Rubashkin's documented recruitment of illegal workers (see Stephen Bloom's book Postville for details).
Freedman mentions Rabbi Asher Zeilingold (the rabbi who "excommunicated" me), but does not mention Zeilingold's fake OSHA report, first exposed here.
The Times is notably gun-shy about covering crime in the haredi world. Is Freedman's piece an example of this? Is it simply sloppy journalism? Or is it "lite" coverage, fluff, a puff piece?
I do not know. But I'll tell you this much – Rubashkin and his rabbis have little to fear from the New York Times, if Freedman's reporting is a taken as a benchmark.