These are terrible days for many Israeli media outlets and the journalists who work for them, as they see the sunset on their empire. I innocently thought that after former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was treated with kid gloves to serve the Left's lofty goals, which included the expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes, a lesson would have been learned. I was wrong. Nothing shook up their hearts, and the leftist media continued to barrel into a chasm of ineffectuality and inferiority.
Who would have thought that in the country's 70th year, a solid majority of its citizens would have lost faith in the media outlets that preach desperation, depression, and dreariness? The media, which is supposed to be a tool that upholds a democracy, has sunk its teeth into the democracy and is now a real threat to rule by the people, through their elected officials. We know that there can be no democracy without a fair media that provides the public with well-checked, trustworthy information while making a clear distinction between opinion and fact and between real and fake news.
Every child already understands the role the leftist media has adopted toward the right-wing government. No one gives any importance to losers who, under the guise of freedom of expression, wage a ceaseless war to return to power without an election – the old elite that for some time now has been in the process of losing its grip on public opinion.
In Israel, like in the U.S., political losers use accusations of "fake news" to pervert the will of the voters as expressed in a democratic election. Anyone who watches current events programs or listens to analysts and most of the hosts at the state broadcaster, whose programs start at 7 a.m., already knows what they will say. They never manage to surprise us. This is programming that preaches propaganda at the expense of the taxpayer, who is forced to fund them. So it's no wonder that the public prefers entertainment and reality shows to biased commentary that is nothing more than propaganda dressed up as objective news reporting.
In my opinion, there is no problem with a newspaper or any other media outlet having an agenda, as long as it is clear, trustworthy, and consistent, and never the newspaper owner's own financial agenda. There is no greater form of media corruption than when a newspaper hammers or strokes politicians based solely on the needs and interests of the owner. A newspaper that has served the Palestinian narrative since 1948 can be tolerated; it has a right to do so.
I have not found enough talented people in the Israeli media who will go after the people who represent the Palestinian narrative, possibly because it is their own narrative. However, for over 10 years, we have been hearing endless attacks on Israel Hayom, simply because it expresses the opinions of the Right and takes the patriotic editorial line that this is the only country we have. The success of Israel Hayom drives many in the old-guard media elite, who used to have a monopoly on the public sphere, out of their minds. When Israel Hayom appeared on the scene, their assets, intellectual and material, started to dwindle.
These past few months, the anger of the Left and its emissaries in politics and the media has swelled to disturbing proportions. They can't bear their disgrace. They cannot accept the fact that Israel Hayom isn't even involved in the storm of negotiations between owners of various media outlets, politicians, tycoons, and vested interests. They are having difficulty handling the simple, acknowledged fact that the owners of Israel Hayom has no economic interests in Israel – they amassed their wealth abroad, and invested in the paper for the sole reason of providing a balance to the hostile media that doesn't distinguish between opposing the government and opposing the state.
Toward the end of his life, King Alexander Yannai told his wife Shlomzion: "Fear not the Pharisees and the non-Pharisees, but the hypocrites who ape the Pharisees; because their deeds are the deeds of Zimri but they expect a reward like Phineas" (Sotah 22b). There are an astonishing number of hypocrites in the Israeli media.
Time and again, Bolshevik political and media indoctrinators show and make lofty speeches about freedom of expression and the need to protect print journalism, but their only goal is to help the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper deal with the dramatic drop in its readership – for which they will receive sympathetic coverage in that same paper. That is what happened with the anti-Israel Hayom Law for the Promotion and Protection of Printed Media in Israel of 2014.
The lead proponents of the bill included Zionist Union MK Eitan Cabel and Zionist Union co-leader Tzipi Livni, who was assisted by a legal opinion provided by Yedioth publisher Arnon Mozes. The people who supported the anti-Israel Hayom bill in exchange for passing pats and are now complaining about politicians who want flattering coverage understand so little. The Left has always allowed itself to do what it forbade others from doing.
We expect professional integrity and social responsibility from the people in the media. The media is supposed to serve the truth, not financial interests.
