Some Polemical Remarks on Poor Journalism in Israel

Bad and unprofessional journalism is everywhere and every newspaper has had a blunder at some point.

The lies of the legacy and corporate media world have now become epic. MSNBC, CNN, NEW YORK TIMES are currently being taught their lesson that lies and poorly researched articles are not a business model.

Viewers are disappearing in double figures, subscriptions are being cancelled on a massive scale, advertising revenue is falling and emergency sales of ailing media and mass cancellations are already on the agenda. A typical correction by the market. That’s a good thing.

But where the market is not so free and income depends more on tax money and “donations” from a few families, you can safely ignore the reader and offer them poor quality. So we are experiencing, with a grain of salt, a decline, some say a free fall of journalism in Israel.

In almost all arenas where knowledge and intelligence are important, Israel is usually among the leading nations, but not in journalism and media. In the meantime, the following picture emerges when it comes to current political reporting: Poor journalism.

IMHO poor journalism is just to rely on “anonymous senior officers, experts,…”, presenting those hearsays as facts and framing those “facts” into wild, baseless speculations told as “background” by “sources near/familiar/ with the subject and internals”. The Israeli media are in really poor shape. And if this does not work pull out some fabricated polls. Done.

For example: Currently, there is media hysteria/campaign against Eli Feldstein and the alleged criminal affairs of the PMO. The reporting about this alleged criminal affairs does not serve the glory of Israeli journalism. Quite the opposite.

One Israeli journalist pointed it most recently out. His piece of opinion is noteworthy. He can be counted into the left fraction of ‘everything, just not Bibi.’ However, he sees massive selective enforcement and dubious methods at work covering the most recent alleged affairs of the PMO.

He writes correctly but very cautiously, even to my taste anxiously which is IMHO underpinned by his multiple throwing of the ‘Gessler hut’ by confessing that he is a big critique of Bibi. Wow. A confession which seems to me strange and confusing in a country which claims to be Gan Eden for free speech and democracy.

Is it really necessary in today’s Israel for a white-collar worker to do so? Obviously yes. That says a lot. A lot more than what is confessed.

My 5 cents: Israel needs more and better protected free speech. Meant, not only exclusively for the left. The selective enforcement is in Israel unfortunately a fact.

As a left-winger, you can burn the streets or attack innocent bystanders or the Prime Minister. They face no harsh consequences. The court system judges say, all legit expressions of free speech. Go ahead.

The police learn the lessons and do not incarcerate them anymore. However, do the same as a right-winger, you are immediately handcuffed and face severe consequences.

Out of this poor status quo, he wrote straight to the point: “Military and secret levels acted under the auspices of the legal level in an obviously unreasonable manner. Their loathing of the elected political echelon made them do things that should not be done” (transl. mine. All blame on me)

His description of the current alleged affairs of the PMO is noteworthy: “So what did we have? Suspicion of extortion by the Prime Minister’s Office against the Minister of Defense. Suspicion of extortion by the Prime Minister’s Office against a senior officer. Suspicion of a serious act of falsifying protocols in the Prime Minister’s office. Suspicion that the Prime Minister’s Office operated an underground of soldiers and officers within the IDF. Suspicion that the Prime Minister’s Office acted criminally against the families of the abductees. Suspicion that the Prime Minister’s Office sabotaged Israel’s ability to achieve the goals of the war. Suspicion that the Prime Minister’s Office seriously damaged the security of the state. As a bonus: It is suspected that the head of the National Security Council, who is close to the Prime Minister, is a dangerous criminal who accepted a bribe. Those who read newspapers and watched television in Israel in recent weeks had no doubt: Watergate. (…) Courageous Shin Bet investigators and lawyers with integrity managed to uncover five or six different corruption cases, which prove that the Prime Minister’s Office is a criminal organization. The Prime Minister’s Office is a hostile organization. The Prime Minister’s Office undermines the security of the country, harms the war effort and is immersed in subversive criminal activity.” Wow.

Another very visible example happened days before. Israel had its “Pravda Moment of Unified Media” when four of Israel’s leading daily newspapers published the same front page. To this day, no one knows whether it was a paid advertisement, a ghostly hand or a common opinion of these four daily newspapers. For a democracy a very embarrassing occurance.

In short: A piece of opinion worth reading. Not only for what was said and the way how it was said (Gessler hut), but what was not said; and the author seems to me pretty aware of it.

PS as an insider note: Rom was the synthesis of Athen and Sparta, said an anonymous senior close and familiar with internals.

Pic Cover by AI. Symbolic. Pic Netanyahu by AI. Symbolic.