SESSION 1
IDI Senior Fellow Prof. Tamar Hermann, the Academic Director of IDI's Guttman Center, opened the symposium by saying that the media plays an important and central role in shaping the political space in democratic societies, since most of the public's knowledge of political events is mediated by the media. She asserted that the media is not "guilty of everything"; it can play a negative role in the relationship between the public and the political system, but can also undoubtedly play a positive role as well.
Dr. Paul Frosh, Head of IDI's Media and Democracy Research Project, put forward the following questions about the relationship between the media and politics: What is the connection between the media's role as the watchdog of democracy and the lack of public confidence in elected officials? Is the media the main cause of the public's lack of trust in the political system? Or are there structural factors – whether institutional or sectoral – that are responsible for the decrease in public confidence in politics and politicians?
Dr. Gadi Taub of the Department of Communication and Journalism and the School of Public Policy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem discussed the Israeli media's preoccupation with corruption. In his opinion, the media creates the inaccurate impression that Israel is one of the most corrupt places in the world because the race for ratings motivates the media to be sensationalist. In his view, there is an area of discourse within journalism that offers an alternative to the world of corruption: the world of the legal system. The discourse undergoes a process of intense legalization, and the media goes along with it. As a result of this discourse, a small elite from the world of law is responsible for decisions that are at the crux of democracy, when these matters should, in fact, be decided by all citizens.
Prof. Akiba Cohen of the Department of Communications at Tel Aviv University said that despite the advent of the Internet as an arena for discussion and content, television is still the most important avenue for the public to receive information. However, television presents the news in a manner that is incomprehensible: news programs bombard the public with short messages containing complex content at a rapid pace, without any kind of break for processing and assimilation on the part of the viewer. More energy is invested in creating sensations than in providing reliable and objective content. This makes it difficult for the viewer to absorb the information, process it, and emerge from the experience informed.
Prof. Dan Caspi, Head of the Communications Department at Ben Gurion University, presented two public perceptions of the media: a perception of victimization and a systemic approach. According to the perception of victimization, the media can be blamed for everything, since it is an all-powerful super-mechanism and puppet- master. He sees this as an unproductive approach, which does not elicit any kind of positive action; it is a popular approach, however, because it frees the consumer from all responsibility. The competing approach, which is less popular, is a systemic approach. This view sees the media as in a constant process of dialogue with its surroundings; consequently, it understands that just as the media affects the political system, so the political system affects the media. According to this approach, the media largely presents what the people who approach it seek to present – including members of the political system.
Prof. Naama Sheffi, Head of the Department of Communication at Sapir College and a columnist for Haaretz, chose to focus on a social perspective and raised the possibility that the media reflects the social and political situation in Israel – and that can be changed only by education. In her opinion, the entertainment press plays a role in lowering the level of the discourse, both in and of itself own and when its news methods are introduced to the margins of the main news.
Dr. Tamir Sheafer of the Department of Political Science and the Department of Journalism of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said that in comparative international studies, Israel ranks high in consumption of news from television and the press, as well as in the amount of news with political significance that is consumed. In his opinion, the media in Israel is very critical of the political system; the danger, however, is not in the amount of criticism levied by the media, but in the lowering of the level of discourse, in which the media plays a central role.
SESSION 2
Uzi Benziman, a journalist and Editor of IDI's The Seventh Eye on-line journal, introduced the topic of second session, which focused on organizations that seek to generate internal discussion of the media within the journalistic community.
Anat Saragusti, Executive Director of Agenda, a non-profit organization that provides media services to social change organizations in Israel, said that her organization aims to assist in making the discourse more pluralistic. In her opinion, in today's society the media plays the role of the town square and affects the decision-making process, but since the media is not pluralistic and mostly represents Ashkenazi Jewish men between the ages of thirty to fifty, it is also important to represent minorities and the more marginalized populations.
Izhar Be'er, Executive Director of the Keshev Center for the Protection of Democracy, presented the main points that he believes are worth using as the basis of criticism of the media: the degree of consonance between headlines and content, the use of appropriate rhetoric, making unsubstantiated accusations, and the reliability of sources of information. In his opinion, the level of self-criticism in the media is very low.
Nili Ben-Gigi Wolf, the Executive Director of Israel's Media Watch, asserted that real constructive criticism of the media will come from the general public. In her estimation, the media in Israel today lacks real pluralism because it is the state that allocates licenses and franchises.
Prof. Amos Shapira, a member of the Israel Press Council, argued that internal auditing bodies often tend to develop their own agenda, and therefore lose their effectiveness as independent critics.
SESSION 3
Elisheva Braun-Lapidot, Head of Communications and Marketing at the Israel Democracy Institute, opened the session by recalling the "Gallant Affair" and claimed that the inability (or perhaps laziness) of some journalists to identify the motives of their sources has turned the media into an active partner in the settling of accounts and has contributed to the yellowing of journalism.
Nissim Douek, Founder and Director of UNIK PR, said that while people believe that the media is absolutely objective, the media is only human and chooses what to cover and what not to cover each day. He pointed out that the media not only chooses, but also prioritizes, but it is not clear whether this latter role is made known to the public clearly. In his opinion, it is not, since the communications industry in Israel is controlled by wealthy individuals who are working first and foremost to promote their own interest – i.e. accruing wealth – rather than to preserve journalistic ethics and transparency.
Media consultant Boris Krasny, President of Policy, Ltd, argued that in the end, the media does not stand on its own; rather, it is a function, and its importance has been increasing lately because the primary trait that has begun to characterize the political system is the desire to survive.
Benny Cohen, a media consultant from PRIsrael, indicated that the media accepts a great deal of content from external sources that it doesn't check, preferring to "sell" it to the public instead. In his opinion, the media has become an authority that convicts people. In addition, truth in advertising is no longer a guiding principle of journalism; instead of publishing the whole truth, newspapers now publish all that can be published without being sued for libel.
Media consultant Tal Alexandrovich-Segev argued that media consultants take a message, process it, translate it into media language, and distribute it to the communications industry, as part of an attempt to create a language that broadcasters will agree to transmit and consume. Because of this, politicians are pulled into provocations of necessity and become involved in escalations that are not in the interest of the general public. This is precisely the job of a media adviser – to sell the right story to the right place. In saying this, though, she pointed out that she uses the term "sell" in its positive sense – i.e. to make available a story that is both complete and reliable.
SESSION 4
Yair Sheleg, a Senior Researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and columnist for Haaretz, opened the session by asking the participants what they see as the most serious problems in the relationship between the press and politics, and whether they have any suggestions for improvement.
MK Dr. Einat Wilf of the Labor Party related that she had a personal experience in which damage was done to her because she did not cooperate with the media, and she defended herself through her website. In her opinion, when there are special interests that must be disclosed, the Internet enables politicians to contact the public directly and expose things as they are. Politicians are no longer only victims of the media; they can create content themselves and bypass the mediation.
Pinhas Wallerstein, the former Chairman of the Yesha Council, argued that the real problem with the media is that a small number of people determine the national agenda. As he sees it, Razi Barkai, Ilana Dayan, and London and Kirschenbaum are decent people, but they have a clear political identity. He stressed that in such a situation, it is very important for someone with a right-wing political identity to be present so as to serve as a counterweight to the left-wing opinions that are being voiced, even if it is at the expense of damage to integrity and to the ethical code.
Zuheir Andraus, Editor of the Arabic newspaper Ma Al-Khadat, argued that politically the Israeli Hebrew language press enjoys complete freedom and has even ousted prime ministers. He respects the Israeli media very much – it has a clear line, touches on the darkest aspects of society, and raises them up to the surface. But when it comes to issues related to the military and security, it's as if the Israeli press is a unit or regiment working under the IDF Spokesman. In his estimation, the Arabic-language Palestinian press in Israel does not play a role in shaping the opinion of the more than 1.2 million Arabs in Israel, since there are no proper daily newspapers or influential websites.
Hanoch Marmary, the former Editor in Chief of Haaretz, pointed out that all of the people mentioned in the discussion are the outgoing generation of the Israeli media, and said that the main problem as he sees it is that there are no replacements for those individuals. According to Marmary, in recent years considerations of profit have entered the written press, and these considerations have impacted on the messages transmitted by the press.