One of the more fascinating media debates taking place right now pertains to the question: Can Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receive a pardon if he resigns or does he have to face legal proceedings regardless? Some of our most prominent and articulate pundits are partaking in this interesting discussion. Their arguments are solid and their conclusions are convincing.
The polemic surrounding the proposition to pardon Netanyahu, however, is largely up in the air. At present, the accused has yet to request clemency, and we certainly haven't received word of any official decision to provide it were he to resign from public office. And not only is there no concrete proposal on the table, the fundamental condition for one does not exist: An indictment is still forthcoming, and the accused has yet to be tried and convicted.
None of this particularly bothers those pundits who have already deemed Netanyahu guilty of all accusations, including those still to come, and it certainly has not stopped them from waging this theoretical debate as if it were imminently practicable. Even more absurd is their debate over skinning a bear that hasn't been caught yet, or their profoundly earnest adherence to a polemic which, let's be honest, rests entirely on speculation.
Incidentally, this isn't the first time. Before the 2015 elections, the same pundits mulled and deliberated over the composition of Isaac Herzog's coalition; they presented charts showing the existence of a left-wing obstructionist bloc; they ironed out all the ideological differences between the coalition partners and they handed out ministry portfolios – before and after Herzog's rotation with Tzipi Livni. Even on election night, when the actual results started trickling to the news studios, some of these individuals persisted to conduct coalition negotiations on Herzog's behalf, because "things are still wide open."
Obviously, the purpose of journalistic analysis is to spur educated debate, not just in the present but in the future: to formulate public discourse that accounts for potential developments; to present the pitfalls and advantages and to consider responses to the various scenarios. Somehow, however, the analytical journalistic discourse here only contemplates developments in a certain direction (there will be a political earthquake, Benjamin Netanyahu won't assemble the next coalition); posits one possible outcome (the populist Right will be defeated when England says "no" to Brexit); and envisages a scenario with only one desired outcome (without a doubt, Hillary Clinton will pursue Barack Obama's policies on Israel).
And when critical journalistic debate is conducted with self-indulgent earnestness of this sort and is predicated on unrealized prognostications; when celebrated pundits so wholly devote themselves to a reality that hasn't yet unfolded; when these pundits rally to support or reject a still-hypothetical scenario, we are dealing with speculative journalism.
Interestingly this phenomenon is expanding parallel to the plague of fake news, the industry of disinformation aimed at swaying public opinion, widely viewed as the most severe threat to modern public discourse. Perhaps we can find herein the source of the danger behind this speculative form of journalism: Unlike fake news, it is actually blossoming on establishment-affiliated media platforms (but not in the wild jungle of the internet); its leaders are esteemed journalists (not anonymous peddlers of narrow interests); their audience consists of responsible media consumers (not fans of conspiracy theories).
It's hard to understand how those who attribute the decline of journalism to fake news can't see how their own inclinations toward speculative journalism erode the public's faith in the media, exacerbate the thirst for alternative sources of information and chases viewers toward nonmainstream, less rigid and more creative outlets. It should shock no one that even Eyal Berkovic, the former soccer-star-turned-media-pundit, is scoring more among viewers.
