IBA (Israel Broadcasting Authority) TOP ISRAELI LEFT-WING RADIO HOST Shelley Yehimovitz SPEAKS FRANKLY

The following text appeared in Arutz 7 News Service, Friday, December 12, 1997 / Kislev 13, 5758. As a public service, we bring to your attention its content.

TOP ISRAELI LEFT-WING RADIO HOST SPEAKS FRANKLY

The following exchange is excerpted from the Dec. 5, 1997 weekend supplement of Ma'ariv newspaper. Shelley Yehimovitz is a top Israeli media personality who hosts what is perhaps Israel Radio's premier talk show, Hakol Diburim ("It's All Talk"). She is also on the panel of the top Israel Television political talk show Popolitica and now hosts a television program on the media "Meet the Press". Arutz Sheva thanks IMRA for the translation.

Reporter: So basically everything is acceptable in order to promote your world view as a reporter?

Sheli Yehimowitz - From Newspaper Makor Rishon (                   09/01/1998)

Yehimovitz: Yes. For example, like this matter with the 'Leftist media'. When it is brought up we are so angry, but the time has come to admit the facts - the media is leftist. Put a ballot box in any media, and you will get very clear results, from the center to the left. The talk of the newspapers in the country is not the talk of the public, and the estrangement between the public and the media reaches new heights each day. There is a complete lack of trust, a feeling that what is happening here in the media is not what is happening by "us," and this is correct.

And since I do not believe in objectivity and think that whoever presents himself as objective is usually not telling the truth, the only solution for this estrangement is the entrance of more right wing reporters to the media. We need it like the air we breathe, and not as a fig leaf on the opinion page. I believe that now, as right wing media institutes have been established, and they are overflowing with students, the revolution is underway and it will only do us good."

...The mobilization of the media in '92 to support the election of Rabin was clearly not a professional mobilization. Operations "Grapes of Wrath" for example, that same problematic operation, did not receive the criticism it had coming to it, because Shimon Peres was then heading the government.

...In the case of Netanyahu, the struggle of the media focuses not on a matter of right or left, here we are working to protect the institutions which are critical for our democratic life - the Attorney General's Office, Supreme Court, police and also media. But on the other hand, when you think about it, there was another Prime Minister, who later underwent an ideological revolution, but who showed open scorn towards the Supreme Court, B'tselem, the Citizen's Right Association. This is the same Prime Minister who, as Minister of Defense, called for breaking the arms and legs of the Palestinians. I am referring to Yitzchak Rabin. And he did not get similar media treatment.

Israel's Media Watch is a non-partisan advocacy group concerned with the ethical and professional standards of the media in Israel.

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