Israel's public electronic
broadcasting agencies, both radio and television, are powerful and
influential factors in the country's political, cultural, social and
economic life. Indeed, they exert a pervasive presence and succeed,
more often than not, in establishing the agenda of the day and how media
consumers will perceive and relate to that agenda. Some would even
claim that they can control the public figures themselves.
The central question
addressed in this study is whether Israel’s media have expanded their
roles from reporting, observing and interpreting news to making the news
and managing it.
The study indicates that
electronic media journalists, in too many instances, have been operating
in blatant violation of the normative codes of professional ethics as
well as the law. The news they bring into the living rooms of Israel's
media consumers is more than occasionally slanted, biased and
non-objective. In fact, they have proclaimed that "objectivity" is no
longer a realizable goal and that media consumers must settle for no
more than "fairness".
This study outlines the
reasons for the excessive impact the electronic media possesses and
deals with several central issues which highlight, the failure to uphold
the obligations of media ethics. These include a review of balance in
regular news programs; public affairs discussion shows; treatment of the
Oslo peace process; the media's role during the aftermath of the Rabin
assassination; coverage of the 1996 elections; and sundry other topics.
In addition, the authors
marshal a significant body of material relating to the ideological
identity and character of Israel's media, including first-person
accounts and testimonies.
The study is based on over
three years of monitoring and researching Israel's three television
channels (Channel One, Channel Two and the Educational Television
Network) as well as the two main radio stations (Kol Yisrael [The Voice
of Israel] and IDF Army radio).
This paper
was published in English in the ACPR's
Policy Paper No. 50, 1998