"The bomb-shelter diary of 8-year-old Renana," which was broadcast on one of the morning talk shows, raised some painful connotations within the Israeli public. At the same time, a competing channel was airing a series of interviews with tiny, scared children. With these broadcasts, the media broke new records for cynicism in its coverage of the latest round of fighting.
Up until recently the commercial television stations sufficed with intensive, borderline hysterical, coverage of security-related events. The competition, caused by the split into three different channels and the planned merger between Reshet and Channel 10, have polarized the situation, leading to never-ending broadcasts and tabloid news items while crossing all the red lines.
The Palestinians' objective is to score a public relations victory because they know they can't win in actual battle. Disrupting the daily lives of Israeli citizens is undeniable proof in their eyes that the goal has been achieved.
According to the television stations, Hamas is winning big. Its leaders are watching the Israeli broadcasts and bursting with joy. In the name of democracy, freedom of expression and the public's right to know, we are shooting ourselves in the foot and projecting national weakness and infirmity – frightened civilians, hysterical children and anxious reporters – and personally handing our enemy a weapon. Hamas is receiving a tailwind of encouragement from the Israel media.
This isn't a new phenomenon. The phenomenon of hysterical over-coverage by the Israeli media of security-related events has been going on for over two decades, but it's getting more extreme. The tendency to dramatize, rolling broadcasts, repeatedly reporting every scrap of information have become the norm.
Recently though we have seen an escalation, in terms of both the amount and type of coverage. Rookie reporters, who under normal circumstances are tasked with covering product launches and new plays, are handed a microphone and proceed to act like authoritative security experts, deigning to advise the prime minister and the country's leaders on how to manage the warfare. During the recent round of hostilities, the television stations crossed yet another line by interviewing small children and even toddlers.
The media will certainly reject these claims and say they are simply doing their job faithfully, and that its duty to the public is to provide as much information as possible in times of emergency. But where are they, these same responsible reporters, when it comes to the way they cover traffic accidents, for example? Every year hundreds of people die on the roads and we don't see the same media outcry, rolling broadcasts or an effort to mitigate the phenomenon.
What we have here is media hypocrisy predicated on competition and ratings, which spark hysteria and sow panic in the public, thus playing into our enemy's hands.
This media behavior is irresponsible, almost negligent. It is giving the Israeli public the sense that the country is on the precipice of existential danger. In reality, with all due respect for the severity of the situation – the actual damage it has caused is smaller than one multi-casualty car accident on Route 90.
It would behoove us to grow up and show some self-restraint. The studio heads are cordially invited to come together and put an end to this madness. It's important to draft media guidelines for coverage of security events. This is neither censorship nor the Vietnam War but a little less hysteria and a little more sanity and perspective are necessary. We can make do without all the commotion and limit the next wave of overblown media coverage.
