ASBURY PARK – Officials and members of the public spoke out against vulgarity and a religious slur left up on APP.com’s website for 14 hours on a Sunday.
A photo caption was posted along with a photo of a nurse giving a vaccination. The “f word” was used in the caption as an adjective describing the nurse’s appearance. The slur won’t be repeated in this article, but it was of a religious nature.
The photo accompanied others with a story about a vaccination clinic by Gustavo Martinez Contreras, but it is not clear if he was the one who wrote the caption or if they were written by another staffer. Typically, the captions are edited before being uploaded or published. The Asbury Park Press did not comment on how the mistake was made.
The photo caption was eventually changed and then the photo was removed altogether, reported NJ Spotlight.
Asbury Park Press executive editor Paul D’Ambrosio issued a statement: “Late on March 20, a photo ran on APP.com with an unapproved and offensive caption. The photo was removed March 21 as soon as it was brought to our attention. As executive editor of the Asbury Park Press, I apologize deeply to women, the Lakewood Jewish community (where the photo was taken), all members of the Jewish faith, the Asian American community and all our readers.
“The words in the caption were totally unacceptable and in no way reflect the principles and practices of the staff of the Press and Gannett. The Press and Gannett have a long history of fighting for inclusiveness, diversity and women’s rights. We took immediate and significant action once we became aware of the issue, and we changed our online procedures to ensure such an event never happens again,” he said.
The statement was edited to extend the apology to all members of the Jewish community and not just Lakewood.
The photo caption upset readers who questioned how it got published, but more importantly, why it was written in the first place. The apology was published after the incident got picked up by national news sites.
“The Asbury Park Press released a short-sighted apology that does not even begin to describe how something of this low caliber can be written and published for the public to see. The public needs to know why this language was written in the first place, and how the paper’s system allowed for it to be published,” Senator Vin Gopal said.
“When incidents of this magnitude occur to other organizations, The Asbury Park Press calls for further explanation, and the statement the paper released today is hypocritical to what they ask of others in the same or similar situations. The media needs to be held to the same standard for addressing mistakes, and it must provide information as to how it will prevent future mishandlings from happening,” he said.
