Just before moving on to the farewell interview with Razi Barkai yesterday in the main edition of News 12, Yonit Levy gave a proper disclosure – she and her interview partner, Amit Segal, are graduates of Gali Tzahal. , Was not intended for viewers who read the media sections, they know very well that a high percentage of media people in the country served at the station (for example, the editor of the edition Guy Sudri). It was intended for the average viewer of Channel 12, “And the radio prefers to hear Tal and Aviad at all. The same viewer asked himself why the two most senior journalists in the news company were sent for a couple interview with Barkai, an honor usually reserved for Israeli prime ministers and foreign leaders, and why this thing gets such a long screen time earlier this week And not for example for a color article in the Shabbat news.
As someone who has known since childhood to hum the opening melody of “What’s Burning” (taken from a song by the band Jamiroquai), the interview with Barkai left me with mixed feelings. I could not escape the feeling that I was getting another glimpse of the same clique, a club closed to members only that has been shaping the world of media for decades. While everyone is talking about the 8200 unit becoming a ticket to the high-tech world given to 18-year-olds and determining their future, few are talking about IDF waves doing the same with the communications market for decades and more on a military radio station – a hallucinatory concept in itself. Wages in the media are not similar to high-tech, more in the direction of the customer service field, but for those people who dream of working in it, admission or non-acceptance to the GLC has a crucial impact on their future. In fact, in Israel there is an absurd situation where a degree in media from any academic institution will not open a door for you in the field, but a three-year service at the station (even if in a production position) will at least arrange the first job after the army.
After the discussion in principle about the GLC and its specific weight in the Israeli media, it is important to talk about the interview itself. Of the military radio station In recent decades, the winner of the Sokolov Prize, who covered wars, peace agreements and everything in between, ended his tenure at the station (at least in his regular slot) with a weak response. A natural thing, not one that gets such dramatic coverage.If your bank manager had announced retirement after three decades, you would have wished him success, bought a beautiful succulent and accepted it with understanding.
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As Levy noted in the interview, a total of three days passed from the moment Barkai announced his desire to leave the program until he submitted it for the last time. This was after a number of years in which the ratings of the show dropped and Barkai himself sounded more disappointed and angry than eager and hungry. Yesterday he said it again, Razi feels that the country has run away from him, in his eyes the guilt depends mainly on Netanyahu’s long reign but feels that he has given up on all of us. Is it disappointing that one of our best journalists feels that way? Completely. Does this justify such an interview? absolutely not.
It is of course no coincidence that the departure takes place in close proximity to the dismissal of Yaakov Bardugo from submitting the evening diary at the station (although the interview itself took place before her). Bardugo is a red sheet in Barkai’s eyes – beyond the fact that his political views are the opposite of his own, he is not a journalist (of course not a GLC graduate) and his placement as a presenter at the station (as stated by state witness Nir Hefetz) was done under pressure from opposition chairman Benjamin Netanyahu Levy and Segal, both appreciative of Barkai, asked if it was possible that the anger at Bardugo stemmed from his frustration that the latter had a higher rating, to which Barkai replied that porn sites also have high viewing percentages and clarified exactly what he thinks of the qualities Bardugo brings to the table. Unfortunately, it seems that the battle he waged has long been decided, the line that separated reporters, presenters, speakers and publicists has completely blurred, and the viewer / listener at home can not distinguish nor is interested in who is who.
What is not mentioned in the farewell interview (and it is a pity) is the role that the closed club of the GLC has in the same sense of antagonism that the public has towards the media. The military station has become a production line of media people Which aired yesterday in the main edition, one that in a revised world covers only the burning issues of today, (to remind you, we may be on the verge of an all-out war in Europe) and does not last more than an hour, is a good example of this.