Several months ago Eli Pollack of Israel Media Watch (colleague of Batya's husband Yisrael Medad) spoke at our yeshiva, Yeshivat Hesder Ma'ale Efraim. They do excellent work. He discussed the problem of keeping the media honest in Israel. I won't go into everything he said (check out the link), but one point that was very powerful was that the media are the stars in our public life. No one can cross them. They get special treatment from all of the public officials for a very good reason. Any public official, elected or not, including a judge, can be praised or harassed by the media. So if a media person is called to testify in court, the judge will make google eyes over him and do everything short of getting up from the bench to serve him tea.
Now, here's the pit of low comedy from America. Laugh, but here it is worse.
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Here's another example: have you ever heard reports on philandering activities of media stars? a discussion on prime time of Haim Yavin's salary? on Motti Shaklar's brining back to Radio Kol Yisrael the failed star Dan Shiloh? No, the media keeps, as much as possibe, its foibles off the air. But everyuone else, from Rav Aviner to politicians are fair game. this is called the double-standard at work and when IMW seeks to counter this, we are accused of engaging in censorship promotion and right-wing McCarthyism. And the rest of the media takes it up.
The left-wing media in Israel hardly ever show any solidarity with alternative/right media such as Arutz-7 when they are attacked or persecuted. The same goes for the civil-rights organizations which defend only the left. There are a few exceptions, but they are so striking because they are so few.
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