Journalists coddling Olmert to prevent Netanyahu from being elected
Investigative journalist Yoav Yitzchak reports this evening that Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert is being coddled by a group of journalists from nearly all parts of the media to keep Olmert in power. The journalists are acting out of fear that Binyamin Netanyahu would win any new election or in return for interviews with Olmert and with President Bush.Hat Tip: Meir in Montreal
Israel's top journalists are betraying the public by covering for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as he leads Israel to disaster, according to leading investigative journalist Yoav Yitzchak, who operates Nfc, an independent website. Yitzchak claimed the Olmert bureau was instrumental in helping some of the journalists get an audience with U.S. President Bush, and received sympathetic coverage durring Bush's visit in return.Read the whole thing.
Yitzchak, who earned a reputation as a leading investigative reporter in daily newspaper Maariv before opening his own news operation, listed the names of the journalists who he says are complicit in the ongoing cover-up. These include Yoel Marcus, veteran commentator for Haaretz; Ayala Hason, the top political correspondent for Channel 1 TV and a presenter on Voice of Israel radio; Ben Caspit, a high-profile columnist for Maariv, author and TV show host; Nachum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer, the two veteran political reporters and commentators for leading daily Yediot Acharonot, as well as Udi Segal and Amnon Abramovich, political reporter and commentator, respectively, for Channel 2 TV.
Together, the list of newsmen covers almost all of Israel's top news sources.
The journalists "are willingly complicit in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's efforts to survive, politically and personally," Yitzchak wrote. They serve as the Olmert bureau's de-facto spokesmen, he added, and are actively engaged in the production of a fake picture of reality which Olmert is deceitfully manufacturing, while the truth is quite simple.
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Yoel Marcus, he said, began praising Olmert and asking his readers not to support Olmert's replacement by another politician, after receiving a personal audience with Olmert. Just a few weeks earlier, explained Yitzchak, Marcus demanded that Olmert be dragged out of office because of his failures in the Second Lebanon War and his corruption.
Shiffer and Barnea of Yediot Acharonot, as well as Channel 2's Yonit Levy, received personal interviews with President Bush, with the intercession and encouragement of Olmert's bureau, Yitzchak accused. In return Olmert received gushing praise from these news outlets during the course of the last week.
Yitzchak said it was possible that the journalists are not just after their own gain, but think that by helping Olmert they are "protecting" the public from elections in which Likud head Binyamin Netanyahu would take power, a possibility they detest. Even so, he noted, this would constitute taking sides and manipulation of the general public.
For those who read Hebrew, the Yoav Yitzchak article they're quoting is here.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:24 AM
1 Comments:
The Israeli Left has dominated the media and shaped public opinion for decades in Israel. Until their monopoly is broken, while we may see the last of Ehud Olmert, it doesn't necessarily mean we'll see a Prime Minister to whom the Israeli MSM and the branja are opposed - or that he can get his views past them should he come to power.
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