I will try to walk around this minefield with the required care. If I accidentally activate a mine with my keyboard, sorry in advance – and be blessed. This week, the “Through Us” movement distributed awards to journalists, “Knights of Free Media”. Among the winners are also journalists who write in Globes, I congratulate them on their victory and I am happy with their joy and my eyes, God forbid, no trouble with them and their achievements. My principled position – regardless of the identity of the recipients of the award in one year or another – is that media outlets or political bodies should not award awards to journalists.
To me, this is an absurdity that screams to heaven. Yaya Fink serves as the director general of the Derechnu movement, which operates the “Democrat TV” news channel. Derech is a political movement. Fink is a political person. Meltzer wrote that “from the evidence presented to me and from the investigations conducted before me, it emerged that the activities of our path were intended to bring about a change of government in Israel.” He said it was doing so “by setting up and maintaining a database of supporters of the goals of our path, appealing to voters directly and through advertisements, and all for the purpose of replacing the existing government in the election.”
It is our right to want to replace the Likud government, but it must do so in accordance with the law. However, our path is a political movement, and it has political goals. Its head is a political man. Fink previously served as the chief of staff of Shelly Yachimovich, when she served as chairman of the opposition. In the 22nd Knesset elections, he even ran on the Labor Party list. Moments after calling for his resignation from the party and a defeat, Fink defected to Ehud Barak’s Democratic camp list – but was not elected to the Knesset.
Yaya Fink is a political man in every way
It seems that anyone who follows Pink’s publications can understand that he is a political person in every aspect of his limbs and tendons. This is of course his right, but when a political body sets up a media outlet – it is not a celebration of the press. When a media outlet acts on behalf of a political organization, even if it is not necessarily personally identifiable – this is not a blessing for the Israeli media based in the mud. When this political body awards prizes to journalists at a conference, and calls them “Knights of Free Media” – I think my friend George Orwell also feels embarrassed at his grave. Think that the Likud would award a prize to journalists and call them “knights of the free media.” Where are the knights? And what is free in this media?
Our way is not trying to hide its support for the current government. She is running an intensive campaign for her. From the beginning, she ran a campaign to replace the Likud, later encouraged the formation of a government – and has since taken care of the public relations campaign for the government and the blackening campaign for the opposition, among other things through the “free” media Democrat TV.
The day before the Knights of the Free Media Awards were presented, it was written on the Facebook page of our path: “This is what a government that works for us looks like! … For a complex country – it is good to have a complex government.”
In another publication there was a manifesto by a professor of political science: “A year for the government of change and national rescue. With all its problems, its many achievements and in the history of the State of Israel there were very few governments that achieved so much in a short time. Saar, Abbas, Michaeli and Horowitz with a full mouth: Congratulations !! You will win mitzvos and good deeds !! “
A movement that has established a media arm for itself
These are fresh, but representative examples. Our way is a political body that has established a media arm, with cynicism it calls this arm “free media”. Democrat TV is a free media outlet, like the late Likud TV propaganda broadcasts. As part of its attempt to settle in the hearts, it awards prizes to journalists through us. Journalists who even boast of this award, and so also has a chilling effect of criticizing this body.It is not pleasant to criticize a body that has awarded you an award.It is not certain that you will want to criticize a body that may award you an award next year.
Our way did not invent the method, nor even the degree of chivalry. It was preceded, for example, by the Movement for Quality of Government. This association awards prizes to journalists every year, sorry: to the Knights of Quality of Government. It also gives to judges. Sorry, I’m correcting again: to the Knights of Quality of Government. An organization that conducts public and legal struggles, annually gives “signals” to journalists who cover it daily. Does this sound normal to you? Remember the Likud movement again. Do you think it makes sense for her to hand out knighthoods to journalists? To me it sounds like an absolute troll, and so it is with the Quality of Government movement, which awards prizes to reporters and journalists in general, and to legal journalists who cover this movement in particular.
If that’s not enough, the Quality of Government Movement also awards knighthoods to judges who have heard its case – though it does appear in the Supreme Court. The judges have a special category “the judiciary”, and the list of Supreme Court justices who have won the title of chivalry is long. In light of the fact that there are currently only 15 judges in the Supreme Court, and because every year the title is awarded in an impressive ceremony and publicity – our judges’ chances of winning the title are high. However, not only judges won the award, but also the deputy ombudsman. So did a long line of MKs and ministers, military and security personnel and more.
Journalists are not supposed to receive awards or degrees from government agencies, nor from non-profit organizations that come in contact with them. So are judges and public figures. The Sokolov Prize, which is revered as at least the Nobel Prize in Exact Sciences, is also awarded by the Tel Aviv Municipality. What about us and this? Why would a journalist want an award given by a municipality?
The honorable title of journalist comes from his readership
I think the most honorable title a journalist can get comes from his readers, listeners or viewers. The journalist is not measured by a closed cohort that awards prizes to each other every year (leisure activities: check when a right-wing journalist recently received the Sokolov Prize. Spoiler: he has long been absent). The signals, prizes, titles and standard mark should, as stated, be given by the listeners and readers.
In the past, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed wrote interesting things after a media confrontation he had with then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He said, “If the defense minister had demanded that I sign the verse ‘Shema Yisrael’ or that sanctions be imposed on me, I would not have signed. Because it is not proper for a person to sign a Torah position out of coercion and pressure.” We will not enter into a controversy following what Rabbi Melamed wrote in his remarks, but I would like to deduce from his remarks the principle: Torah authority should not subordinate its legitimate positions before one minister or another. The mixing of power and rabbinate is generally unhealthy for anyone. The distribution of honorary degrees by political bodies or associations to journalists who cover their work is also unhealthy: not for journalists who receive a degree that they do not respect themselves, nor for the degree winners who seem to bribe the subjects of coverage. The fact that Yaya Fink has moved from a political party to the media of our way only illustrates the problematic nature of the revolving doors and the distribution of these titles. And again, I will repeat the opening remarks, there is nothing in my little words or contempt for any of the journalists and personalities who won the award. I only talked about the principle and the shatanz between the surveyor and the surveyed.