Media Watch Column May 30, 2004
Our original title was a bit different: On the Peace Warpath
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Watching Israel's Media:
Trouble counting
YISRAEL MEDAD & ELI POLLAK May. 29, 2004
In an acrobatic-like turnabout, the local media – which showed signs of fairness during the Likud Party internal poll campaign – chucked any pretense of nonpartisanship in its coverage of the IDF's Operation Rainbow.
Key media figures identified a goal – getting Israel out of the Gaza Strip – and mobilized the instruments at their disposal to achieve it.
It all began at 10 p.m. the Sunday evening after the Likud Party poll. As if orchestrated, interviews were broadcast and, the next day, newspaper columns and editorials were published lambasting the "Likud minority" that stymied the retreat from Gaza.
Some media people took a direct participatory role. Two of Army Radio's main personalities, morning show anchor Micha Friedman and Yael Dan, who hosts the noon news wrap-up program, were among the many thousands who attended the Out of Gaza rally in Tel Aviv on May 15.
Meanwhile, at Reshet Bet, morning news show host Aryeh Golan was photographed in the company of Uri Avnery, the extreme left-wing anti-Zionist campaigner, while wearing the symbol of Gush Shalom: Israeli and Palestinian flags intertwined.
Next morning, Golan proudly announced on air that he too had attended the rally.
Media coverage of the rally was dramatic. Channel 1 reporter Boaz Shapira, barely catching his breath, proclaimed it "without doubt, one of the largest in the state's history."
In a revealing statement he then let us know "the number of media representatives attempting to broadcast from here is large, not what we are used to on such occasions."
But it was only two weeks since a rally, similar in size, had taken place on Independence Day in Gush Katif, under much more difficult logistical circumstances. And just a few months ago, the very same media reported on similar participation figures for a Kikar Rabin rally opposing any dismantlement of Jewish communities beyond the Green Line.
WE EXAMINED the TV coverage given to the Out of Gaza rally and compared it to a January 10, 2000 rally beseeching former prime minister Ehud Barak not to forsake the Golan Heights. While opposition leader Shimon Peres and Ami Ayalon, head of the People's Voice peace initiative, were provided with prime-time live coverage of their speeches at the Gaza rally, not a single speech was aired on TV during the pro-Golan rally.
It is not only demonstrators the media has trouble counting. Haaretz's Amira Hass reported 70 homes in Rafah completely destroyed in two days. That same evening the IDF announced 56 structures torn down during the previous 10 days.
Does anyone question her sources and their reliability?
Israel Radio's military correspondent, Carmela Menashe, proudly admitted to Dalia Ya'iri back on May 24, 2000 that she was one of those who created the media atmosphere which led to the hasty retreat from Lebanon. Perhaps trying to outdo Hass, she sympathetically opened her microphone on May 23 to the Palestinian misery in the Rafah camp. One wonders whether she will do the same if the Sharon government decides to evacuate Netzarim.
Keren Yedaya was interviewed on Israel Radio's Hakol Dibburim show. Recipient of the Cannes Film Festival Golden Camera award, Yedaya proclaimed that Israel was "responsible for the slavery of 3 million Palestinians," and pleaded: "help the Palestinians" to fight the occupation. The friendly coverage Yedaya garnered [as opposed that not provided to those of the extreme Right] openly reflects on the bias of Israel's media.
Music airplay is also manipulated. Yankele Rothblit's song, entitled "Arik, let the bulldozers destroy" has been having a very tough time penetrating the airwaves. It is a cynical parody, protesting against the plan to eliminate Jewish communities in the territories.
In previous years, left-wing songs by Chava Alberstein and Aviv Gefen, to mention just two singers, were playlist staples, heard not only during music shows but especially during news and interview programs.
There are a few righteous individuals in this media Sodom. Channel 2 TV's Arab affairs correspondent Ehud Ya'ari reported that the Palestinian Authority had opened its armories in Gaza to distribute weapons to Hamas and other terrorists. Channel 1 did report on the activity of the parents of four soldiers killed in Gaza two weeks ago, who came to Kissufim Junction bringing a large sign reading, "IDF: We're With You All the Way."
Herbert Gans, in his path-breaking 1979 Deciding What's News, was frank about media ethics. "Journalists are not detached," he wrote, "because journalists choose news in response to source power, they are unwittingly part of the political process." In Israel, we need not be so circumspect.
The bias we witness is very much intentional.
Yisrael Medad and Prof. Eli Pollak are vice-chairman and chairman of Israel's Media Watch (www.imw.org.il)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull%26cid=1085814354832
=========================
Watching Israel's Media:
Trouble counting
YISRAEL MEDAD & ELI POLLAK May. 29, 2004
In an acrobatic-like turnabout, the local media – which showed signs of fairness during the Likud Party internal poll campaign – chucked any pretense of nonpartisanship in its coverage of the IDF's Operation Rainbow.
Key media figures identified a goal – getting Israel out of the Gaza Strip – and mobilized the instruments at their disposal to achieve it.
It all began at 10 p.m. the Sunday evening after the Likud Party poll. As if orchestrated, interviews were broadcast and, the next day, newspaper columns and editorials were published lambasting the "Likud minority" that stymied the retreat from Gaza.
Some media people took a direct participatory role. Two of Army Radio's main personalities, morning show anchor Micha Friedman and Yael Dan, who hosts the noon news wrap-up program, were among the many thousands who attended the Out of Gaza rally in Tel Aviv on May 15.
Meanwhile, at Reshet Bet, morning news show host Aryeh Golan was photographed in the company of Uri Avnery, the extreme left-wing anti-Zionist campaigner, while wearing the symbol of Gush Shalom: Israeli and Palestinian flags intertwined.
Next morning, Golan proudly announced on air that he too had attended the rally.
Media coverage of the rally was dramatic. Channel 1 reporter Boaz Shapira, barely catching his breath, proclaimed it "without doubt, one of the largest in the state's history."
In a revealing statement he then let us know "the number of media representatives attempting to broadcast from here is large, not what we are used to on such occasions."
But it was only two weeks since a rally, similar in size, had taken place on Independence Day in Gush Katif, under much more difficult logistical circumstances. And just a few months ago, the very same media reported on similar participation figures for a Kikar Rabin rally opposing any dismantlement of Jewish communities beyond the Green Line.
WE EXAMINED the TV coverage given to the Out of Gaza rally and compared it to a January 10, 2000 rally beseeching former prime minister Ehud Barak not to forsake the Golan Heights. While opposition leader Shimon Peres and Ami Ayalon, head of the People's Voice peace initiative, were provided with prime-time live coverage of their speeches at the Gaza rally, not a single speech was aired on TV during the pro-Golan rally.
It is not only demonstrators the media has trouble counting. Haaretz's Amira Hass reported 70 homes in Rafah completely destroyed in two days. That same evening the IDF announced 56 structures torn down during the previous 10 days.
Does anyone question her sources and their reliability?
Israel Radio's military correspondent, Carmela Menashe, proudly admitted to Dalia Ya'iri back on May 24, 2000 that she was one of those who created the media atmosphere which led to the hasty retreat from Lebanon. Perhaps trying to outdo Hass, she sympathetically opened her microphone on May 23 to the Palestinian misery in the Rafah camp. One wonders whether she will do the same if the Sharon government decides to evacuate Netzarim.
Keren Yedaya was interviewed on Israel Radio's Hakol Dibburim show. Recipient of the Cannes Film Festival Golden Camera award, Yedaya proclaimed that Israel was "responsible for the slavery of 3 million Palestinians," and pleaded: "help the Palestinians" to fight the occupation. The friendly coverage Yedaya garnered [as opposed that not provided to those of the extreme Right] openly reflects on the bias of Israel's media.
Music airplay is also manipulated. Yankele Rothblit's song, entitled "Arik, let the bulldozers destroy" has been having a very tough time penetrating the airwaves. It is a cynical parody, protesting against the plan to eliminate Jewish communities in the territories.
In previous years, left-wing songs by Chava Alberstein and Aviv Gefen, to mention just two singers, were playlist staples, heard not only during music shows but especially during news and interview programs.
There are a few righteous individuals in this media Sodom. Channel 2 TV's Arab affairs correspondent Ehud Ya'ari reported that the Palestinian Authority had opened its armories in Gaza to distribute weapons to Hamas and other terrorists. Channel 1 did report on the activity of the parents of four soldiers killed in Gaza two weeks ago, who came to Kissufim Junction bringing a large sign reading, "IDF: We're With You All the Way."
Herbert Gans, in his path-breaking 1979 Deciding What's News, was frank about media ethics. "Journalists are not detached," he wrote, "because journalists choose news in response to source power, they are unwittingly part of the political process." In Israel, we need not be so circumspect.
The bias we witness is very much intentional.
Yisrael Medad and Prof. Eli Pollak are vice-chairman and chairman of Israel's Media Watch (www.imw.org.il)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull%26cid=1085814354832
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