On Public Broadcasting and Freedom of the Press (Column 64)

With God's help

Several times in the past I have pointed out that our journalists' capacity for critical thought is deficient, which creates a significant problem for democratic conduct and for the quality of public debate here. Sometimes the biases and errors stem from an interest or an agenda, and sometimes from sheer stupidity or ignorance. One of the most salient examples of such bias, together with a host of other troubling phenomena, is the discussion and coverage of the issue of public broadcasting, the Corporation versus the Broadcasting Authority, and the government's conduct.

Let me say at the outset that the government's conduct on this issue (and not only on this one) is a scandal. These people conduct themselves disgracefully in every respect. There is no serious preparatory work, and even when there is, it is not taken into account. They change policy (and legislation) every other day without a second thought, apparently for reasons that are wholly unrelated to the merits. They send employees home, bring them back, and send them home again, without thinking about them (or about us) at all. From every direction they toss out slogans, sometimes baseless and nonsensical, and so on.

The journalistic coverage of the issue

But if the government is acting in a very problematic way in this matter, it seems to me that this pales in comparison to the journalistic coverage of the issue. Here we are really dealing with a sad joke. The issue has not left the headlines for weeks and months, while at the same time it does not matter in the slightest to anyone. I really do not care, and apparently neither do most other Israeli citizens, what is happening or will happen there. Our press is obsessively preoccupied with itself, but the public shows sober judgment on this matter and does not let these interested parties, who are trying to convince all of us that they are critically important to our future and our fate, mislead it. They explain to us again and again how important public broadcasting is to our future and our fate, to no avail. We remain indifferent. Does this indifference stem from stupidity or lack of understanding? Perhaps from lack of concern? Concern for the fate of the workers is of course positive and proper, as in any other factory or workplace. But equally true is that employment solutions are not supposed to be created by opening unnecessary jobs. Make-work is not really a solution to unemployment. The headlines these workers receive provoke only antagonism. They are using public resources to stir up public support on their behalf, so it is no wonder that the public is not exactly responding and is not exactly showing concern.

Why is this happening?

Amit Segal once wrote that the press cooked up the public's lack of sympathy for it all by itself. So now they should not be surprised that no one cares about them or their fate. But that is not all. It seems to me that this (justified) indifference expresses, sharply and clearly, the understanding that the issue really is not important to anyone, nor is it important in itself. There is a question here of livelihood for a few people, nothing more. Sometimes they try to turn it into ideology and into fateful questions about our future. You must be joking. None of this has any meaning or importance. Moreover, even if decisions do need to be made regarding public broadcasting, in my assessment the correct decision is to close both of these unnecessary institutions, both the Corporation and the Broadcasting Authority. And no, not only because they are lefties (which of course they deny vigorously, thereby provoking even stronger antagonism. Nobody likes liars), but simply because they are anachronistic and unnecessary, and even more because their very existence constitutes a threat to freedom of the press.

To be more concrete, I will take an example from recent days. The journalist Nurit Kanti wrote an angry article here, in which she explains to all of us where we are mistaken and why we are naive and do not understand. Her remarks reflect an impressively large collection of fallacies, and it is hard to decide whether this is ideological and self-interested bias or just plain stupidity. Since this is a typical article, very characteristic of the "public debate" on this issue in particular and in general, allow me to address it in somewhat greater detail.

You "deserve it"

Kanti opens by saying that when people say on social media "you deserve it," they treat journalists as one single whole, whereas in fact this is a diverse group that is not all cut from one cloth. Well, the public is not really buying it. True, here and there there are journalists of a different kind, and still the feeling is that the reins are in the hands of a fairly monolithic group. The voice that comes out of there is fairly uniform, and on many issues there is no expression whatsoever for the views of a significant part of the public. The journalists, of course, keep denying it, but the public apparently is not particularly convinced.

It is hard not to see the similarity to what is happening in another detached institution, the Supreme Court. The statements coming out of the Supreme Court, which as is well known is also very diverse and has always been pluralistic and reflective of the public as a whole, are very similar. There too they explain to us that it is very diverse and contains many voices and different opinions, but the public is not convinced. For some reason only left-wing people see the great diversity in the court. Right-wing people are blind and do not quite manage to discern it. There is apparently a difference in the quality of vision between left and right. Incidentally, the same difference also appears with respect to the media. There too people on the left, with their hawk eyes, manage to discern the media's diversity and balance, something that escapes the notice of the blind right.

I must say that the situation is indeed changing for the better, both in the press and in the Supreme Court, and still it is far from balanced. Therefore it seems to me that the public's view of these two institutions is entirely well founded. As long as the only people who notice this balance are people who belong to one camp, I am not persuaded that Israel should be presumed blind (until the Almighty opens their eyes).

A barricade of the free press

Kanti writes that those rejoicing at the journalists' misfortune do not understand that another barricade of freedom of the press is falling here, which of course harms the rejoicers themselves (=the public). One can understand from her words that these fools do not realize that they are dancing at their own funeral.

From there she moves in a flash to terrorize us, explaining what will happen when there is no free press: there will be censorship of criticism of the prime minister. We will hear nothing about the IDF's failures in Operation Protective Edge and in general. We will hear nothing about money and corruption in politics, about abuse of the elderly in nursing homes, about housing prices, about problems in health services in the periphery, about the garbage our children eat in after-school programs, and so on. She ends the passage with pathos: "Yes yes, it goes that far." Whoever is not horrified should stand up.

So what, after all, is missing from her argument?

In fact, everything is correct. Freedom of the press is the lifeblood of democracy, and it is in all of our interest. She is entirely right. Except that there is no connection whatsoever between this correct claim and the conclusion she is trying to infer from it. This argument is simply beside the point. This article seems to me like handing someone a grocery list (things that really are missing at home) when he is on his way to the greengrocer.

I assume that all of us are in favor of a free press. And perhaps Kanti will be surprised, but I think all of us also understand what can happen when it is not free. No one needs Nurit Kanti to remind him of the list of headlines (some of them certainly important) that the press brings to our attention every day. Every news broadcast bombards us nonstop with all sorts of such issues. Is there anyone who does not understand that in a dictatorship, or when there is no free press, we will hear none of this? So why are we so indifferent? Are we really dancing at our own funeral?

What Nurit Kanti "forgot" to explain in her article is why there is a threat here to freedom of the press. I, in my insignificance, a worm and not a man who has not merited the light shining from journalistic life, do not understand why what is happening right now threatens this freedom. She explains the terrible consequences we can expect without a free press, which is of course trivial, but without saying why the current situation creates a threat to journalistic freedom and freedom of information. Does closing the Broadcasting Authority or the Corporation, or abolishing public broadcasting altogether, threaten freedom of the press? Not in the slightest.

In fact, this is not a threat to freedom of the press at all but the opposite, a kind of privatization. A threat to freedom of the press can arise when the government takes control of media outlets, especially if this is the only outlet or the central one. Therefore it is precisely the existence of public broadcasting that creates concern about harm to freedom of the press. But if there are no public media outlets, then the government will have nothing over which to try to take control. It is precisely then that the threat to freedom of the press will disappear once and for all.

If so, Kanti could just as well have explained to us the threats we can expect from the Iranian nuclear program if the Corporation is closed. It seems to me that the decision whether to close the Corporation, the Broadcasting Authority, or perhaps both, will affect the Iranian threat more than it will affect freedom of the press and information in our neck of the woods.

On balance

Whether there will be public broadcasting here or not, whether it will be the Broadcasting Authority or the Corporation, and whether neither of them exists, the storm will still rage all around. Private media outlets are broadcasting, uploaded, and printed at full force. Of course each of them has an agenda; some are more diverse and others less so, but apparently none of them is really balanced. Exactly like our public broadcasting, which admittedly is not balanced but on the other hand is not diverse either (though, as noted, this has certainly improved lately). Freedom of the press in the private media market means that there are many and varied media outlets, and the public can consume unbalanced information in a balanced way (which it does not always do, it must be admitted).

Public broadcasting is far from balanced, whether there is government involvement or not. The lack of balance does not stem from government involvement but from the monochromatic outlook of the broadcasters and journalists. In private media outlets, at least they do not try to tell us stories about balance. We all know that Yediot is for Olmert and against Bibi, that Israel Hayom is for Bibi, that Makor Rishon is one thing and Haaretz another, and so forth. Maybe they too sometimes try to preen and present themselves as balanced media outlets, but in any case nobody believes them. Precisely because of this, we know how to relate to what appears there.

If we are left with no public broadcasting at all, all of these will still be here and will balance one another. Beyond the fact that the concern over government control of the media will of course not exist at all if there is no public broadcasting, closing public broadcasting may perhaps make room for additional media outlets, and the balance will improve even further.

Closing public broadcasting

The conclusion is that if all the horsemen of the apocalypse who morning and evening threaten us with claims that the government is trying to take over the media are right, the obvious conclusion is to close public broadcasting immediately. As our sages said, if there is a fear of mosquitoes it is worth draining the swamp. And in general, why should a democratic state have public broadcasting funded by the state? On the contrary, public broadcasting should be closed, thereby severing the connection between government and media altogether.

The proof

Well, if you were wondering what the basis of her argument nevertheless is, here now comes the conclusive proof:

And if you think I am exaggerating, try to find another reason for the fact that most of the coalition spent the last two weeks dealing with matters relating to the Corporation, in a country that may be the hardest in the world to govern. It is not as though the Syrians, the Russians, Hamas, the disability strike, and the violence in the streets went on vacation.

Well, I could not remain indifferent to her request, and indeed I tried to find another reason. And lo and behold, I found at least two. Kanti claims that the only possible explanation is that the government wants to take over the press. This is the proof for all her arguments. I must remind the discerning reader that on the logical plane, if I offer another explanation, even merely a possible one, the proof of course collapses. All the more so since I have two other explanations and not just one, and both are not only possible but entirely plausible and sensible.

The first explanation is that the media does not let the issue drop from the agenda, and therefore the Knesset and the government do not stop dealing with it either. After all, whenever people here say that "the public debate has not subsided," or that "tempers are running high," or that "sharp and severe criticism is being heard," what they really mean is that the issue has not dropped from the news bulletins. We are talking about the babbling of a handful of journalists who are occupied with the issue for reasons of their own, but this has no necessary connection to public interest. That is true of every issue that is part of the "public debate" (see the housing and cottage cheese protests and so on), but certainly of an issue like the workplace of these broadcasters themselves. Here they simply never stop dealing with it, and they themselves lament the public's indifference. So what is surprising about the government and the Knesset dealing with this issue all the time? The media does not let them leave it alone.

The second explanation (which is connected to the first) is that the media is the channel through which the government and the Knesset appear before the public. It is well known that government ministers and members of Knesset need the media, and therefore they cannot ignore its distress and its pressures. It is no wonder that under that pressure they continue to deal with this esoteric issue all the time, instead of dealing with the collection of important issues listed in Kanti's aforementioned paragraph (the Russians, the Syrians, Hamas, the disability strike, the violence, and so on).

At the margins there may perhaps also be a desire to take over the media, but permit me to doubt that this is the main reason for the obsessive preoccupation with this negligible and unnecessary issue.

Be that as it may, let me remind you again that even if this proof were valid (and it is not), at most it would prove that the government is trying to intervene in the media market. But even that, of course, does not lead to the conclusion that one should establish a Corporation or a Broadcasting Authority. On the contrary, the obvious conclusion from this is that public broadcasting should be abolished altogether.

Summary and conclusions

Kanti explains to us that the government's decisions reflect a grave threat to freedom of the press, but from reading her words it is really not clear why. Moreover, even if there really is such a threat, her conclusion is the opposite of the one it should imply. She argues for keeping public broadcasting instead of calling for its closure. And all this is based on a "proof" whose quality was described above.

It is important to understand that this is not a news item or an incidental remark by one broadcaster or another. This is an article written with thought, and only after it satisfied its author was it published. This article reflects the quality of the press, and especially the quality of our public debate. Patronizing fools who present arguments at nursery-school level, turn truth into falsehood, bring absurd "proofs" for bizarre claims, and infer from all this the opposite conclusion from the one that follows. And this is what is called here "public debate," "sharp criticism," "tempers running high," and the like.

If you were looking for a good reason to close public broadcasting and finally complete the privatization of the media market, this article and the debate surrounding the issue of privatization are an excellent reason. Nonsense of this sort ought to be purchased by the public voluntarily, not forced upon it against its will. That way we can remove once and for all the threat to freedom of the press.