How Netanyahu's government makes moves to control Israeli media outlets
Israeli media faces new-found pressure as Netanyahuʼs administration takes steps against news organizations. Government actions target both local and international outlets while public trust in journalism drops
Benjamin Netanyahu faces media-related charges in court‚ yet his government keeps pushing for more control over news outlets. Last winter‚ he stood before judges claiming he just wanted to fix media bias — but his actions tell a different story
The current right-wing coalition (which includes many anti-establishment figures) has taken strong steps against various news organizations: they blocked state advertising in Haaretz newspaper and tried to shut-down the public broadcaster Kan-11. The governments reasoning for these actions was quite simple; they said these outlets hurt Israelʼs image during war-time
I constantly tried to bring new people so that there would be diversity
Some of Netanyahuʼs past media-control efforts worked out well: the free newspaper Israel-Hayom started publishing in 07 and Channel-14 both give him non-stop positive coverage. However other attempts led to legal trouble — heʼs now dealing with criminal charges about trading favors for good press
The governments pressure on media includes foreign outlets too. They made quick-fix rules to block international news groups that they dont like; Al-Jazeera got hit first. The police took their equipment and stopped their broadcasts in Israel (they even tried going after Associated Press but backed down when USA stepped in)
- State ads banned in Haaretz
- Plans to end Kan-11 broadcasting
- Powers to block foreign media
- Control over news archives
Public trust in news has gone down by half since 11ʼ with only about 1/4 of people believing what they read. This makes it easier for the government to push against media freedom — especially now during war-time when they can say its about protecting the country
The future might bring more limits on press freedom: if planned court system changes happen there wont be much protection left for independent journalism. With Trump likely coming back to power next year Netanyahu might feel even more free to push his media-control agenda forward
