Hey Jude – Chicago News Celebrates Yom Kippur with Nazi Symbol

Hey Jude – Chicago News Celebrates Yom Kippur with Nazi Symbol

September 24, 2015 – The holiest day of the year on the Jewish Calendar is the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, but it’s Tribune Media’s flagship TV station WGN-TV Chicago that is atoning after its tone-deaf use of a Nazi symbol during their coverage of the holiday. The over-the-shoulder image behind the news anchor was a star of David with the word “Jude” scrawled in the middle. Unfortunately for WGNT-TV, this was the symbol used to mark Jews in concentration camps during the Hitler era.

Viewers of the 9pm segment were quick to respond:

Holy crap, @WGNNews, this is your stock photo for a Jewish holiday?? Nobody thought that’s a bad choice of photo? pic.twitter.com/z7BNuvGybS

— Marc Karlinsky (@MarcKarlinsky) September 23, 2015

WGN general manager Greg Easterly and news director Jennifer Lyons issued an apology following the viewer backlash:

“We failed to recognize that the artwork we chose to accompany the story contained an offensive symbol. This was an unfortunate mistake. Ignorance is not an excuse. We are extremely embarrassed and we deeply apologize to our viewers and to the Jewish community for this mistake. We are investigating how this situation occurred, reviewing our in- house policies and making changes in order to avoid such mistakes happening in the future. Thank you for your understanding. We promise to do better.”

Oh vey!

So was the WGN-TV Yom Kippur gaff Funny or Offensive? VOTE and COMMENT now…