As usual in such cases, there are two narratives and in this case even three: one from the deceased’s family and two from the police officers.
By YISRAEL MEDAD, ELI POLLAKNewspapers, illustrative.(photo credit: NEEDPIX.COM)
Let us consider two stories. One made headlines and became a talking point, while the other vanished as soon as it appeared.Two police officers, under the impression that Iyad Halak was a terrorist, shot and killed him last Saturday. After the fact, it turned out that Halak was autistic, and there is a reasonable probability that his reaction to the police officers was nothing but fear, misapprehension and panic, with no negative intent. We do not yet know what really happened.As usual in such cases, there are two narratives and in this case even three: one from the deceased’s family and two from the police officers.The story, though, is big. Israeli politicians quickly apologized to Halak’s family, and our media did what they perceived to be their duty by giving the family complete credit, while faulting the police.Israel is bashed abroad, and there were attempts to link it falsely to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There is, of course, a big difference. While Floyd’s murder was filmed and broadcast all over the world, Halak’s shooting perhaps was caught on surveillance cameras, but the media have not raised a clamor, demanding that the police release any footage it may have.But there is another story. Eyad Hamad worked as a photographer for the Associated Press for 20 years but was fired last week. As reported in The Jerusalem Post by Khaled Abu Toameh, Hamad claimed that his dismissal was political, a result of a complaint against him by the Palestinian Authority. His wrongdoing was that he seemingly criticized the PA for “arresting and beating a Palestinian journalist.”The Associated Press would not shed light on its version of the story. But the mainstream Israeli media simply did not carry it. Gone was the defense and solidarity with fellow journalists. There were no interviews with the photographer. Nothing. Was this not newsworthy?Aryeh Golan, the left-wing morning presenter on KAN Radio’s Reshet Bet, made it his business to ask a silly question – whether annexation would harm the chances of returning our people and soldiers’ bodies by Hamas. It appears that it is beyond his capacity to ask whether the PA should be held accountable, and to say that its actions against democratic elements pull the rug out from under its feet as it denies Israel the right to annex parts of Judea and Samaria.ONE CAN presume that Yair Netanyahu dislikes Channel 12’s Dana Weiss, a high-profile reporter.In March 2019, after screaming, literally, the same question over again at US President Donald Trump during a press conference in the Purple Room with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting next to him, to wit, “Do you support Netanyahu?” she was unceremoniously removed for uncouth, if not unprofessional, behavior.That same month she apologized for calling Yair “a zero, an autist, a child of feces.”In September 2017, after a harsh conversation with Sara Netanyahu, Weiss admitted “any person can express themselves freely over what we say in the media. We should be ready for the response and that is fine.” Is it, Ms. Weiss?Last week, the young Netanyahu retweeted another woman’s tweet that read: “Does anyone know how Dana Weiss came to a senior position on TV channel 12? Is she articulate? No. Is she wise? No. Interesting?”It is said that pornography is in the eye of the beholder, and many interpreted that tweet in line with the old-style Hollywood casting couch job interview procedure. Others read that as intimating Weiss was hired less for her journalistic abilities than for other of her attributes. To Weiss, it was clear what the message was, and she publicly announced that she would sue Yair Netanyahu for libel.Claiming that two of her female colleagues also suffered the same type of social platform attacks, Weiss is sure that she is a victim of sexual harassment. Her journalistic friends, such as Army Radio’s morning news anchor Efi Triger, were quick to come to her defense and demonstrate journalistic solidarity.But was this newsworthy? Wasn’t there a double standard?As advocate Kinneret Barashi recalled in an interview over 103FM radio with Ben Caspit and Arieh Eldad, there was no similar storm among the media clique when MK Orly Levy-Abecassis was referred to as a political whore and Yotam Navin photomontaged her as a back-alley prostitute on his Facebook page on April 12; or when the same Navin has Prime Minister Netanyahu with his arm around Ayala Hasson on April 14.On May 11, Navin portrayed Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevich as a poster girl in a slightly unbuttoned shirt. Not only is there a sexist element here, but Yankelevich, of the Blue and White Party, is haredi and resides in Beit Shemesh. Her elementary school studies were at Bais Yaakov, and she graduated from the elite Gateshead seminary although born into a secular family.But no, there was silence. All of this was not newsworthy.In an incident parallel to the Netanyahu-Weiss spat, in early November 2018, Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, speaking from the Knesset, seemed to suggest that then-culture minister Miri Regev had exchanged sexual favors for her promotions during her military service, saying, “I don’t want to talk about how you advanced in the army.”Later, he expressed regret that his words had caused offense to other women, but not to Regev, saying, “Because I am aware of what is happening on social media and understand there were women who were hurt by my words, then to them, and only to these same women, do I express sorrow. Miri Regev is not one of [these women]. She wasn’t hurt by my words.”Too many media celebs kept quiet during these fractious affairs.AT THE United Kingdom’s Spiked news and comment website on May 26, an anonymous column by someone working for a national media outlet was published. It asserted: “as you know, we the media aren’t so hot right now... in fact, the media have almost become public enemy number one.”He complained that at press conferences journalists, “instead of chasing genuine truth or exploring a story... go for the easier ‘gotcha’ question” designed to produce a quote to catch the public’s interest. He suggested that “the media need to go back to the original purpose of journalism” – discovery.Had our media followed this sage advice, they would have brought the Hamad story to the forefront. It is news and affects the lives of many, especially Palestinian Arabs. It would have reminded all, especially the PA’s own residents, what to expect from a nondemocratic PA dominance.The media would not have automatically come to Weiss’s defense. She was not libeled, only attacked, and that is what she does herself, day in and day out.It is not an accident that the Israeli public does not trust its media. Why we continue spending huge sums on state-sponsored news channels, funded directly and indirectly by the government out of our taxes, remains a puzzle. If they are not purveyors of worthy news, who needs them?The authors are members of Israel’s Media Watch.
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