In the United States, there is no central body of the press, which is equivalent to the Press Council in Israel. Compare the rights of freelance or bloggers to those of the mainstream press.
It is typical in Israel, when we usually talk about the Press Council, we talk mainly about "journalistic ethics" and the enforcement of the rules of ethics.
Once it sounded good, today it sounds like an opening for regulation whose job it is to shut up and declare media outlets as inferior, and perhaps act to close them.
The main important role of the Press Council is to protect journalists and photographers, who get into trouble or confrontation with the police or with the state authorities.
The establishment of the Press Council as a "friend of the court", out of a desire to protect a photographer that the police required them to submit their photographs as evidence from the scene of an incident, was an important action for the protection of the press.
The credit for this activity belongs to the previous president, Judge Dalia Dorner.
Meltzer presents the election results to Rivlin // Archive photo: Ami Shamir
A few months ago, Justice Hanan Meltzer was appointed council president, and that in itself was bad news. Meltzer has been very active in recent years as chairman of the Election Commission, and as part of his role he has become a controversial figure among some. This is one of the characteristics that Prof. Hava Etzioni Halevi mentioned in the past, regarding the rotten way of the elites in Israel to tighten the lines and play a corrupt game of musical chairs: today you rule on insurance matters, tomorrow you get a senior position in the industry.
The demand of Press Council officials that a waiter choose between the two jobs - Migdal or the Press Council - is not sharp enough. Migdal should not be of interest to council members, so the demand should be the resignation of a waiter from the Press Council. The voices of activists in the Press Council raise the concern that his position as president is in fact gaining influence over the form of coverage of the Migdal company as a dominant factor in the Israeli economy. Again a senior judge or jurist in an influential position, like Shai Nitzan at the National Library, and like the judges who head councils for auditing public bodies or appointment committees.
There are arguments in favor of a senior jurist as president of the Press Council, if only for the reason that journalists need protection from state authorities, or even the police.
There may also be a senior journalist who has retired from the profession and is accepted as an authority.
This should be a person that journalists who feel the pressure of "law enforcement" can be helped by.
The body itself is a bit outdated.
There is a feeling that from below there are business people who want to take over the council and use it for non-business purposes.
In the media itself, problems arise for which journalistic ethics have no answer.
The council's voice was not heard when it was revealed that a journalist or journalists worked in the police service or in cooperation with it.
The council has no statement in the face of cell phone tapping materials and hacking into them.
Press independence and freedom of expression should be the overarching goals of the Press Council.
In an exchange of correspondence between council activists, one of the journalists expressed the obvious conclusion: "An unsuitable waiter (for the job), and the proof of that we have now received. I think he should put the keys."
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us
