Israel's Media Watch (IMW) Lada'at: Israel's electronic broadcasting

ladaat

Israel's Electronic broadcasting:
Reporting or Managing the News ?

Yisrael Medad & Prof. Eli Pollak
Israel’s Media Watch

"The Israel Broadcasting Authority’s obligations as a quasi-governmental institution include: objectivity, prevention of the politicization of the Authority, fairness, equality, no conflict of interests, and integrity in its decisions". Aaron Barak, President of Israel’s Supreme Court, Speech, May 13, 1996.

"Who says that the media is something sacred?": Shimon Peres, former Prime Minister, "Popolitika" TV Program, July 27, 1998

1. Introduction
2. Israel’s Broadcast Media - An Overview
3. The Ideological Identity and Credibility of Israel’s Media
4. The Media Treatment of the Oslo Process
5. Rabin’s Assassination and the following Week as Reflected in Channel One’s TV Broadcasts
6. The Israeli Broadcast Media During the 1996 Election Campaign
7. Imbalance in the Israel Broadcasting Authority’s Programs
8. Conclusion
9. References - Selected Bibliography of Works Consulted - Notes

	1. Introduction In the final days of Israel’s 1996 election campaign, Channel One television broadcast for a few days a promo for "Public Poll", a discussion show which also allowed for the home-viewing audience to "vote" and express their opinions. The program which was to be aired on Tuesday, May 21, was to have dealt with the topic "The Media - Balanced or Leftist?". No one, it seems, thought that the media could possibly be rightist. In any case, the show, unexpectedly, was canceled Monday, the day before it was to have been broadcast. The reason published by media reporters was that certain elements within the IBA had expressed opposition to the show’s make-up and guests. This example highlights the complexity and problematics of researching the topic of Israel’s broadcasting media. The ability of senior employees of the IBA to prevent an open and public discussion of such an issue and to remove it from the public agenda points to the fact that the media has engaged itself not only in reporting the news but to manage and direct that public agenda. This study is intended to describe the increasing influence of the broadcast media on the political life of the state of Israel and the bias that exists in its reporting and its management of public affairs deliberations - the very essence of democratic dialogue for which the press assumes responsibility by championing the public’s right to know.
	2. Israel’s Broadcast Media - An Overview Until 1965, the broadcasts of Radio Kol Yisrael were administered a government unit within the Prime Minister’s Office. In that year, the Broadcasting Authority Law was passed, creating an independent body to produce electronic broadcasts although the Director-General and the members of the Public Council of the IBA, the "plenum", are appointed by the Government. The law was expanded in 1969 to accommodate the reality of television broadcasting which first began that year. A full 85% of the IBA’s budget (700 NIS in 1998) is based on a fee paid by the public for every television set and radio they purchase. In 1990, an additional piece of legislation was passed which established a Second Radio and television Authority which broke the monopoly long enjoyed by the IBA, a quasi-government institution. Although the Second TV Authority is commercial and funded through advertising revenue, it too is supervised by a public committee appointed by the Minister of Education and Culture. The Second Channel’s news programs are produced by a company formed by the station’s three broadcast production concessionaires which, together, provide its budget. The IBA broadcasts one terrestrial TV station, Channel One, and another, Channel 33, which is cable. The programs are mainly in Hebrew with a fixed Arab-language schedule. The radio broadcasts include some dozen stations including seven in Hebrew, one beamed to the Diaspora, another for Russian and Ethiopian immigrants and others for educational purposes. The Second Authority provides one terrestrial TV station, Channel Two, a cable station, Channel 23, intended for educational programming and some 15 local and regional radio stations. The broadcasts of the Israel Educational Television Network (IET), considered a integral unit of the Education Ministry and responsible to the Minister, are carried over both the First and Second TV channels during the morning and afternoon hours. The Defense Minister is responsible for the Israel Army Radio (Galatz) which broadcasts on both AM and FM frequencies. In a formal sense, the non-army programs of Galatz are supervised as to media ethics standards by the IBA’s executive committee, as set forth in Paragraph 48b of the IBA Law. Another media phenomenon which should be noted is that of radio stations which have not received their frequency through lawful procedure. The veteran Israeli peace activist, Abbey Natan, began transmitting from a ship anchored off-shore in the early 1980s, following the Lebanese Campaign. In 1988, another station, Arutz 7, followed suit. At present, according to Ministry of Communications reports as well as police announcements, it is thought that approximately 120-140 additional stations broadcast from land. These stations reflect mainly Arab, ultra-Orthodox and Oriental music lovers. They provide transmission content which cannot be adequately found in the official public broadcast stations. Referring to this, Professor Rina Shapira, Chairperson of the IBA (1995-98), commented during a special seminar held at the Israel Democratic Institute: "We do not maintain an adequate dialogue with various communities and therefore, a religious network, and a Russian network and a Shas network will may arise. The television [broadcasts] do not even attempt to reach a common denominator. (1) For all intents and purposes, the electronic broadcast media in Israel, that is, the radio and television, are "public". The first reason for that is that the government appoints the public representatives to the supervisory committees of the two authorities. Secondly, the vast majority of the current affairs and news broadcasts are run by government-related bodies. It was only in January 1998 that regional radio stations were permitted by law to broadcast independently news programs not originating in the news rooms of either Kol Yisrael or Galatz. Still, Israel’s High Court of Justice has not deviated from its judicial tradition to uphold the supreme independence of broadcasting’s freedom of expression. The Court has minimized to the utmost any possible interference in the internal editorial decisions and judgments of the various media, acting according to the principle of no prior restraint. So Where Is Public Broadcasting? There are those who are of the opinion that instead of public broadcasting, what has ultimately evolved over the years is an unwelcome development in the nature and practice of Israel’s electronic broadcasting. One outspoken critic of the broadcast media, and especially the IBA, is Ben-Dror Yemini. According to Yemini, who defines himself as a leftist and opponent of the Likud government’s social and settlement policies, there exists a despotism in the public broadcast field and has termed several of its leading personalities as "broadcast barons". He has described the relationship between the public and the presumed public broadcasting system as: "public broadcasting is broadcasting in which the public holds stock and asserts supervision...in the public sense, the stockholders are all the citizens that pay the license fee and other taxes. But when it comes to the public sphere, these stockholders [unlike members of a company directorate] possess no supervision and neither to their representatives possess any real control. The barons and hooligans of the freedom of expression...warn us of ‘political interference’ in broadcasting...they desire that the ‘freedom of expression’ remain as their private domain... there is a need to strengthen the public broadcasting also by allowing the public’s representatives greater power in the supervisory bodies. And this must take place in order that freedom of expression be increased as well as limiting the freedom to express". (2) In another of his articles following upon the Gabi Butbol Affair (2*), Yemini published the following: "the First Television Channel...belongs to Masuda from Sderot just as belongs to Fatma of Arar’ah and Motti from Rehavia. There are those in the IBA who do not prepared to accept this basic fact. For them, it is assumed that ‘freedom of expression’ is their own private fiefdom and that only they can do what they want with it. Anyone who seeks to say something different becomes in their eyes a danger to democracy and to the country. In the framework of this brainwashing, they make sure that only what they want is said...media democracy is not just the ratings but the democracy of representatives who will bring about that the media provide expression for all in a variety of public preferences. In the present condition, when the power is in the hands of a clique, the result is tyranny". (3) And in another piece on the affair, Yemini wrote: "the believers in freedom of expression have become those who hide information. An affair that should have reached newspaper headlines, has become something that never was...indeed, freedom of expression is an important foundation in democratic society. If the collective silencing of this unfortunate affair reflects the freedom of expression in Israel, then we have a serious problem. Liberal terrorism has bested democracy, and in the same opportunity has buried freedom of expression". (4) Another element of the cultural restrictiveness exercised by the electronic broadcast system is the obsessive chase after news and the emphasizing and what many would consider the constant rehashing of current affairs. Kol Yisrael’s main radio station, Reshet Bet, which boasts the highest listener rating, broadcasts every weekday over 11 hours of news and discussion programming between 6AM and 12:15 AM. This includes four hours of back-to-back interview shows between 8 AM and 12 AM and seven hours of studio roundup and one hour devoted to analyzing foreign news reports.. The situation in Galatz is not much different. Every weekday, between 7 AM and midnight, the Army radio station broadcasts four hours of back-to-back interview shows, paralleling those of Reshet Bet, and another four hours of studio roundup. The average listener cannot then escape the frame of reference which is set by the radio directors which is a veritable tom-tom of news and current affairs discussion and interviews with politicians and other leading personalities, minute after minute, hour after hour, over and over.

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