Guest Blog: Yediot vs Ma'ariv

If it wasn't so sad it would be funny.

Yesterday's front page banner headline in Yediot Aharonot read:

"Sources close to Olmert: This is anarchy! The company commanders have crossed a red line".

The subheadline was: "In a normal country they would be dismissed. If the company commanders had fought as hard during the war as they are fighting now to depose Olmert, maybe our situation in the war wouldn't have been so bad".

The headline and story caused a huge storm, as it is taboo for any politician to attack the fighting troops, especially since the last war is considered by so many a failure that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is largely responsible for. In fact, the headline and story seemed to throw sand in the eyes and salt on the wounds of reserve soldiers who fought during the last war, who are in any way bitter about the war's outcome. Olmert, in his Herzliya conference speech tonight, vehemently rejected the story and said that anyone who said what was quoted in the story could not be a "close associate of mine and is an imposter."

Olmert's right hand man, Cabinet Secretary Ovad Yehezkel went on TV tonight to also trash the Yediot story, saying that there was no close associate in the prime minister's office who would have said such a thing.

The story comes in the heat of political battle leading up to the publication next Wednesday of the much-awaited Winograd committee report into the Second Lebanon War, which is expected to cause a political upheaval. There is so much behind-the-scenes political spin going on right now it's a full-time job just to keep your head above the fray. Both those attacking Olmert and those defending him are working frantically behind the scenes to achieve their goals.

What's interesting to me is the media angle here: Yediot's story came a day after a banner headline in its main competitor Ma'ariv, which first carried the letter by the battalion commanders calling on Olmert to resign.

Now I have to ask myself: who is the unnamed source close to Olmert that Yediot quoted? Why would the largest newspaper in the country run such an explosive reaction to an already controversial issue without proper attribution? The fact that Maariv, Yediot, Haaretz and, to a lesser degree, the Jerusalem Post, use anonymous sources really bugs me, I guess its because of my journalism training in South Africa, a more conservative approach to media ethics than what goes on here. In my view, if a newspaper is quoting an unnamed source on a story [this should only happen if its absolutely necessary] it should then be telling the reader why the source has asked to remain anonymous.

What's more disturbing is how both the large newspapers seem to have taken sides here ahead of the release of the Winograd report. An independent, free press is vital to a democracy and I see the cut-throat competition between Maariv and Yediot Ahoronot as having too much of an impact on their editorial decisions. In the ratings war between the two large Israeli papers, the loser is the Israeli citizen, who is not being given an accurate, reported picture of what is really going on in his fledgling democracy.

Originally posted on Amir's personal blog Forecast Highs.