JERUSALEM -- My youngest son doesn't read newspapers. Not that he is uninformed about the day's events: All it takes him is a few minutes of browsing through one of his favorite websites, and he gets just about everything he needs to know.
Unlike him, I am a newspaper freak. I need to feel the paper with my own fingers, a thrill no keyboard can give. Also, you can take the newspaper to a room where you don't have a computer. Early in the morning, then, I go out anxiously to fetch them -- meaning Yediot Aharonot and Haaretz -- from my doorstep. Yediot is a high circulation paper, a rare combination of a tabloid and a serious paper (OK, I'm being kind here: my daughter is a senior editor in Yediot). Haaretz is a top quality newspaper, easily ranking among the best in the world (caveat again: I write the obituaries there, so take my word with a grain of salt).
Two newspapers
Why do I need two newspapers? Because. I look first at Yediot's front page, even before getting back into the house. That one single glance can make your day or ruin it, depending on whether Warren Buffet has just decided to invest $4 billion in Israel or whether Iran's president has once again threatened to destroy the Jewish state. And it's not even 7 a.m. Only then do I sit down with the coffee and let the cool-headed Haaretz calm me down and bring some perspective and context in the mayhem.
Alas, many Israelis don't read Haaretz, and recently, it has become difficult to read the other papers. Frankly, Israeli reality itself is not so great these days: aftermath of war, corruption scandals, lack of leadership, loss of trust in the system. The press, however, doesn't make things easier. Hardly can the public recover from one story and there explodes the next one, only again to rub peoples' raw nerves. Everything is explosive, every event is ground-breaking, every story is blown out of proportion. In their battle to maintain their declining readership, newspapers are wearing down the resilience of the Israelis.
Here is an example. President is probably going to be indicted as rapist, screamed the main headline of Yediot earlier this week. Well, he might, and he might not. There has been an investigation going on for quite a long time on what happened -- or not -- in the President's Residence, but we haven't yet heard any official word from the police or the attorney general, one way or another. And anyway, since when is the press supposed to report on events that haven't yet happened?
Furthermore, in Israel, unlike the United States, the president is a figurehead only, with no executive powers whatsoever. If, God forbid, it turns out that he did engage in some improper activity in his office, chances are that state affairs were not harmed. It's not like Bill Clinton talking over the phone with a senator on a serious business, while -- according to the Starr Report -- Monica Lewinsky was busy making him a happier person. Even a great man like Clinton might have been slightly distracted, and the public good might have thus been jeopardized.
This is not the Israeli case. While we are dismayed that our president is associated with such things, we are more concerned with the resignation on Wednesday of Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Gen. Dani Halutz (my personal friend, let me caution you). This is about serious matters, about our security, indeed, about our existence. Yet, if speculation on the president's lot and the actual resignation of the chief of staff get the same headlines, the significance of events gets blurred and the public discourse becomes a circus. The readers might lose interest in public affairs altogether.
Evil thoughts
Which brings me back to my son. Does he know something I don't know? Has he discovered a way to keep his sanity by protecting himself from the onslaught of aggressive, reckless journalism? Has he become his own editor, compensating for lack of restraint and discretion in newsrooms? No, go away, evil thoughts. I'm not going to join this generation, which spells the doom of newspapers. There must still be some good things in them. Maybe in the economic section. There you are: Despite the war, Israeli economy is soaring, Halutz's resignation doesn't affect Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and more. I breathe again.
This article was first published in The Miami Herald on January 19, 2007.
http://www.miami.com
The opinions expressed herein are the author's own personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of the Israel Democracy Institute.