A Popular Free Newspaper, What's the Problem?

Typical Left Wing Hypocrisy, Quashing Opposing Opinions

For many of us, the closing down of the arutz 7 radio station was a blow to democracy, freedom and true liberal life in Israel.

The Israeli Left claims to be "liberal," but they're not. They are strict ideologues totally intolerant of other opinions.

One of the reasons I always refer to the political Liberals as Liberals with a capital "L," is because their ideology is a fanatic, close-minded religion. It bears absolutely no resemblance to the dictionary meaning of the word "liberal."

lib·er·al

ˈlib(ə)rəl/

adjective

1. 1.

   open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.

   "they have more liberal views toward marriage and divorce than some people"
2. 2.

   (of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.

   synonyms:

   wide-ranging, broad-based, general "a liberal education"

The followers of Liberalism are basically messianics who consider themselves as having all of the answers to the world' problems and are highly critical of all other opinions.

In the twentieth century, a viewpoint or ideology associated with free political institutions and religious toleration, as well as support for a strong role of government in regulating capitalism and constructing the welfare state.

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition

Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

They tend to be as close/narrow-minded as is humanly possible, because accepting the legitimacy of other opinions means that their Liberalism is a faulty god. In Israel, the political Leftists claim to be Liberal.

Today's rant is because deja vu the Leftists are at it again. This time, and remember that the Likud was also in power when Arutz 7 Radio was declared illegal, the Leftist Knesset is after Israel Hayom, a very popular free newspaper which is printed in Hebrew and online in both English and Hebrew.

Israeli print newspapers, like most (or all) commercial print newspapers in the world, including the most prestigious, like the New York Times, have been suffering financially, because fewer and fewer people read paper newspapers. I'm constantly getting email offers to sign up for full email editions of various newspapers. Nowadays very few are totally free even on the internet. The Jerusalem Post, for instance, has some articles free and others in their pay for "Premium." The NYT limits the amount of articles a non-subscriber can see.

The concept of free newspapers isn't new, and it's actually the most profitable in many cases. This was explained to me and a friend many years ago by the legendary "renaissance man," David Bar Illan, then Editor in Chief of the Jerusalem Post, whom we consulted with when we dreamt of starting a paper promoting the Israeli Right, pro-Land of Israel for Jews etc. This was after Counterpoint closed down. I got my writing start in Counterpoint, for which I wrote my humorous "Baile Rochel" column, which got me the moniker of "the Israeli Erma Bombeck."

Bar Illan explained that a publication got advertising by proving its circulation numbers. If a paper or magazine is dependent totally on subscriptions and sales, it's very hard to inflate these numbers to attract advertisers. And it's the money the advertisers pay that supports the publication, not the subscribers and sales.

After that talk with Bar Illan I developed a respect for the free newspapers/publications. 

Now, what has really been bothering the Israeli Leftists about the free Israel Hayom? They don't like its popularity. They don't like that the papers are grabbed from their distribution points all over the country. They don't like the fact that the writers are from the Right and are writers who aren't accepted by the old Left wing papers.

They claim that it's  not fair and that the free papers take away customers from the paid papers.

That's capitalism. That's freedom. Maybe if the Leftist papers offered articles and writers that people want to read, they'd have more people willing to buy their publications.

One of the reasons I blog, actually the main reason, is that I realized that I'd never get a regular paid column in the Jerusalem Post, which is the only English language newspaper in Israel.

I highly doubt if the Israeli public, Left, Right and Center agree with the MKs who support the tailor-made law to stop Israel Hayom. But obviously public opinion isn't the criteria for the MKs' vote.

Check out Israel Hayom, and find out more of the story.

10 reasons to reject anti-Israel Hayom bill