• Actual
  • Law and the media
  • Helpful
  • Work areas and campaigns
  • Reviews and monitoring
  • Reporters need helmets, body armor, and psychological support. What challenges do media in Israel face?

    Israel encountered multiple media challenges after the ruthless assault by Hamas militants. On the one hand, journalists are trying to figure out the reason behind the intelligence and special services breakdown and the government’s accountability. On the other hand, they dispel fakes and reconstruct the chronology of terrible events bit by bit.

    BAJ interviewed Anat Saragusti from the Israeli Union of Journalists, who was a correspondent in the Gaza Strip for many years. We discussed how the media responds to public demands and their reactions.

    Society unanimous about demanding an investigation

    One of the pri­ma­ry queries raised imme­di­ate­ly after 7 Octo­ber 2023 inva­sion is this: how did the armed forces, intel­li­gence, and spe­cial ser­vices per­mit it to occur? There are still no clear answers. Only a few pre­lim­i­nary pre­dic­tions were made, such as not notic­ing the uncom­mon sig­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion activ­i­ty in the Gaza Strip, trust­ing pro­pa­gan­da from Hamas, and oth­ers.

    “Obvi­ous­ly, the attack had been planned for months and was kept secret,” says Anat Sara­gusti and imme­di­ate­ly warns that in the event of an alarm, she would have to inter­rupt our con­ver­sa­tion and go down to the bomb shel­ter. “Hamas mil­i­tants man­aged to dis­able the warn­ing devices, but Israeli intel­li­gence did not cau­tion against the threat. This came as a shock because our gov­ern­ment has always boast­ed that we have one of the strongest armies in the world, the best tech­nol­o­gy, the best intel­li­gence ser­vices.”

    The jour­nal­ist calls what hap­pened a col­lapse. Israelis keep ask­ing each oth­er: where were the politi­cians? The soci­ety has clear­ly artic­u­lat­ed a request for an inves­ti­ga­tion, which is already being launched by the country’s biggest media out­lets. In this sense, great expec­ta­tions are placed on jour­nal­ists.

    “While the government has been silent, the media has shown their great worth”

    Anat Sara­gusti said there was a lack of infor­ma­tion amid the shock after the Hamas inva­sion. The pub­lic was wait­ing for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on what to expect and how to pro­ceed. But the politi­cians remained silent.

    “At first, gov­ern­ment agen­cies did not pro­vide infor­ma­tion,” she says. “How­ev­er, the media showed their great worth. While the gov­ern­ment stayed silent, the media were grad­u­al­ly reveal­ing details of how the mil­i­tants man­aged to infil­trate across the bor­der.”

    The spokesper­son for the Israeli Union of Jour­nal­ists does not wish to high­light any spe­cif­ic media out­let and under­scores that all media out­lets have exhib­it­ed cohe­sion by putting aside their dis­par­i­ties. Per­haps except for a TV chan­nel that broad­casts the views of right-wing politi­cians.

    Views on Israeli news sites, YouTube videos, and the num­ber of sub­scribers to media accounts on Telegram have sky­rock­et­ed. This best demon­strates the demand for impor­tant infor­ma­tion.

    Media sector losses: two dead, one missing

    В первые же часы атаки террористов жертвами нападения

    In the first hours of the ter­ror­ist attack, sev­er­al jour­nal­ists fell vic­tim to the attack. They, like many oth­er cit­i­zens, were in the south of the coun­try in their homes ear­ly in the morn­ing.

    One of them was Roy Idan, who man­aged to take sev­er­al pic­tures, includ­ing of mis­sile tracks in the sky. He was last seen by neigh­bors with his 3‑year-old daugh­ter in his arms. The jour­nal­ist was cov­ered in blood and prob­a­bly suf­fered a gun­shot wound. His where­abouts are cur­rent­ly unknown. Idan’s fam­i­ly and friends believe he was kid­napped with the child and may be held hostage in the Gaza Strip.

    Accord­ing to the Israeli Union of Jour­nal­ists, two oth­er media rep­re­sen­ta­tives were vic­tim­ized by the gun­men. One is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er who lived in the South. The oth­er is an army radio pro­duc­er who was at a par­ty a few kilo­me­ters from the Gaza Strip.

    “Not everyone is able to deal with what they see alone”

    Over the past week, jour­nal­ists from dozens of West­ern media out­lets have trav­eled to Israel, includ­ing crews from major TV chan­nels: ABC, CBS, BBC, and oth­ers. Thanks to reporters, hor­ri­fy­ing accounts of the Hamas attack are flood­ing the world’s pub­lic space.

    “Jour­nal­ists work in dan­ger, so they often request body armor and hel­mets,” explains Anat Sara­gusti. “They also ask for psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port, which we offer to media work­ers. Not every­one is able to deal with what they see alone.”

    Fakes: outright deception and splintering narratives

    Local media show their com­mit­ment to pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards and under­stand the bur­den of their respon­si­bil­i­ty, as empha­sized by the Israeli Union of Jour­nal­ists rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

    “Many videos are now emerg­ing and are being wide­ly shared on social media and mes­sag­ing apps. How­ev­er, not all of them are trust­wor­thy, and some are delib­er­ate­ly spread around to cause dis­in­for­ma­tion,” Anat Sara­gusti stat­ed. “Many of these false­hoods per­tain to indi­vid­u­als who are report­ed miss­ing. In this sense, most media out­lets scru­ti­nize facts before releas­ing sen­si­tive data.”

    His­tor­i­cal­ly, a stan­dard has emerged in a war­ring coun­try – wait­ing for per­mis­sion from secu­ri­ty agen­cies before pub­licly announc­ing the death of a ser­vice­man or police­man. The imme­di­ate fam­i­ly and rel­a­tives are noti­fied first. And only then does the media get the right to pub­li­cize sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion.

    There is also an estab­lished prac­tice of respond­ing to fakes that are reg­u­lar­ly thrown in via social net­works and mes­sag­ing apps. As a rule, the media man­age to refute them quite quick­ly, notes the BAJ inter­locu­tor.

    Here is one recent exam­ple. A video of an Israeli woman with her chil­dren, alleged­ly released by Hamas, began cir­cu­lat­ing in Telegram feeds. It was pre­sent­ed as an act of mer­cy.

    It turns out this sto­ry is com­plete­ly false. Jour­nal­ists quick­ly found out that the woman’s name was Avi­tal Aljam and that no one had kid­napped her. An impor­tant fact: the chil­dren of her friend killed by mil­i­tants were next to her in the video.

    “Anoth­er form of false infor­ma­tion aims at split­ting Israeli soci­ety,” adds Anat Sara­gusti. “There are claims that pro­test­ers against judi­cial reform are to blame for the army’s unpre­pared­ness dur­ing the Hamas inva­sion.”

    Accord­ing to her, it breeds mis­trust and fuels hatred and feel­ings of revenge. Deal­ing with such a chal­lenge will be a non-triv­ial task for Israeli soci­ety. In this case, the media’s role can­not be exag­ger­at­ed.

    Turning crisis into an opportunity

    The great­est expec­ta­tions of the pub­lic, of course, are relat­ed to the cov­er­age of the fight­ing and the eval­u­a­tion of the government’s deci­sions. Politi­cians have yet to hold them­selves account­able for the last week’s events.

    “There needs to be a com­plete inves­ti­ga­tion into the most dev­as­tat­ing occur­rence in Israel’s his­to­ry,” Anat Sara­gusti shares the pop­u­lar view­point. “It’s evi­dent that the gov­ern­ment offi­cials are account­able for the incur­sion, for aban­don­ing cit­i­zens to con­front armed rebels, and for the ini­tial days of halt­ing gov­ern­ment pro­ceed­ings.”

    Jour­nal­ists are expect­ed to give a detailed exposé of the events of the last few days. This is a gen­er­al opin­ion that is not ques­tioned.

    “As an Israeli cit­i­zen, I hope that this cri­sis will end the con­flict with the Pales­tini­ans,” con­cludes BAJ’s inter­locu­tor. “I would like to believe that we will use what has hap­pened as an oppor­tu­ni­ty. And the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion will not hap­pen again.”

    Read more:

    Andrei Aliaksandrau’s poem recited in English: Solidarity action marks 1000 days of journalist’s imprisonment

    «Independent media is experiencing a business model collapse, and society is subjecting itself to self-censorship.» Highlights from the Freedom House report

    Physical threats, disinformation, censorship. Six modern challenges for the media

    The most important news and materials in our Telegram channel — subscribe!
    @bajmedia
    Most read
    Every day send to your mailbox: actual offers (grants, vacancies, competitions, scholarships), announcements of events (lectures, performances, presentations, press conferences) and good content.

    Subscribe

    * indicates required

    By subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to the Privacy Policy