Why is a US Jewish paper banning coverage of Trump for 24-hours?

The New York-based 'Forward' declares a 'Trupatorium' on all mention of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate and his campaign.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: JUNE 21, 2016 09:52
A demonstrator holds a sign against Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump outside his campaign rally in Sacramento, California (photo credit: REUTERS)
A demonstrator holds a sign against Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump outside his campaign rally in Sacramento, California
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The US Jewish weekly newspaper The Forward has pledge not to publish any coverage on presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for 24 hours starting Tuesday.
The New York-based newspaper's editor-in-chief Jane Eisner declared the moratorium, or rather 'Trupatorium,' in an editorial published Monday.
In her statement, Eisner explained that "virulent anti-Semistism" has been directed at journalists by online bullies who appear to be anonymous "shadowy white supremacists" who support the billionaire real-estate magnate's presidential campaign.
"Even if you don’t believe that the presumed Republican standard bearer has stoked this cyber-hate (which is a generous assumption), you have to admit that he appears to have done nothing to minimize or condemn it," she noted.
While The Forward pointed to the oft-callous responses journalists are prone to in the line of work, the 119-year-old newspaper charged that what has been seen in Trump's White House run calls for a "bolder response."
"My immediate concern is to address the rising threat level against journalists who are Jewish or who are perceived to be — the haters sometimes don’t bother to distinguish — and who are being bullied, harassed and endangered by the surge of anti-Semitism on social media, predominantly on Twitter," she wrote of the symbolic step.
The Forward noted that it had not been banned from receiving press credentials to cover Trump, as The Washington Post has been by the GOP contender, but that it independently came to the conclusion.
The Jewish newspaper mentioned that the issued of online anti-Semitic harassment targeting journalists covering the 2016 presidential campaign has drawn the attention of the Anti-Defamation League, which has established a task force to deal with the matter.
"Our Trumpatorium is a show of solidarity with Bethany [Mandel] and Jay [Michaelson] and the many other Jewish journalists — Julia Ioffe comes to mind as another prominent example — chased by the Twitter trolls and cyber-haters," Eisner wrote in reference to reporters affected by the issue. "It’s a way of calling attention to the abuses on Twitter itself, which clearly isn’t upholding the standards it requires of its users."