To the Editor:
Ethan Bronner's report on the woes of Israel's Channel 10 commerical television ("Israel TV Station’s Troubles Reflect a Larger Political Battleground", Dec. 28) certainly highlights the politics involved. Of the eight sources whose words were quoted in the story, one was neutral to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seven were persons ideologically opposed to him, even the one who suggested excusing his presumed behavior. An anonymous source was used to make quite a spurious claim that finally included a direct response of denial from the Prime Minister's bureau. None of Israel's media monitoring groups appeared in the story to offer additional angles. For example, the issue of the previous positive political intervention in favor of Channel 10 over the past decade in permitting its owners to avoid payment of debts and gain other financial favors was missing, as was the possible factual incorrectness of Raviv Drucker's investigation.
Yisrael Medad
Vice-chairman, Israel's Media Watch
Jerusalem,
http://www.imw.org.il/
In other words, my point is that the real story here is not "democracy threatened by Netanyahu" but "democracy threatened by media tycoons who have managed to have politicians from all across the political spectrum allow them for a decade latitude in their financial woes and obligations while possibly 'paying' them off with privileged media coverage which could be considered blackmail in a sense". That, I think, is at least the real story, in addition to the very real quite-left-of-center media branja now ganging up on Netanyahu. The media is the actual threat to democracy.
For your information, in any case.
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