The 14th Channel's blunder is by no means just a curiosity
The broadcast fiasco of the attack on the 'Military Advocate General' on Channel 14 reminds us that when the lust for slaughter is stronger than not only conscience but also common sense, you get an event that should cause everyone involved to lock themselves in their homes. And contrary to the fantasies spread by politicians, this madness is not going anywhere - even if the government changes.
Anyone who has ever worked in a newsroom knows the intoxicating feeling leading up to a moment unlike any other in the life of a media outlet: a boom is about to be heard. New, interesting, and important information is about to be released to the world, and after it, a great noise that cannot be ignored will join the soundtrack of reality. In some cases, which are becoming rarer in a world flooded with bullshit, it will last for entire days during which it will drive moves or prevent them. It is no wonder that people are willing to enslave everything — time, energy, social connections, a normal diet — to feel this way again and again and again.
And on the other hand, there is Channel 14, the place where an "achievement" is the attempt to pick on a figure who did indeed err but from whom nothing is left but basic freedoms, when everything more or less has been taken away except the right to let oxygen into the lungs. And even this despicable task, which was presented as if a corruption scandal of shocking severity had been exposed, they managed to turn into one of the most amazing blunders in the history of Israeli television (actually, why be modest? It gives a fight even in the global arena): an "exclusive documentation" of the former Military Advocate General who is not the former Military Advocate General. Simply a woman who went for a walk with her dog and was ambushed by a guy with high ambitions, who called out "Yifat" and immediately began to bombard her as if he were a fighter jet that had received authorization to incriminate a target for liquidation.
However, this is only the beginning of the fiasco, as the documentation was not carried out in a live broadcast: there was a transfer of materials, their examination, editing, framing, presentation, promotions. A whole festival where apparently no one stopped to wonder not only if this carrion was fit for a dog to eat, but whether there was anything to put in the mouth at all. But when the lust for slaughter is stronger than not only conscience but also common sense, you get an event that should cause everyone involved to lock themselves in their homes, lest an "investigator" come and ask them what on earth was going through their minds.
And the beauty of Channel 14, that is, the tragedy that is capable of eliminating the ability to hold a logical discourse, is that even such a hysterical exposure of nakedness in front of everyone is not a reason to bow one's head and take responsibility. The nightly response they issued on the channel, hours after the dimensions of the shame became clear and the article still remained on the air, is an event no less amazing in its audacity: a sincere admission of inconceivable amateurism disguised as an explanation (it's a good thing they didn't write there that every Ashkenazi woman with a dog is a potential Military Advocate General), "facts" that only testify to how much there is no connection between what they do there and journalism, and not of the kind that wins a Pulitzer but at the level of a high school media class that is not particularly prestigious.
The channel's perception of itself, as a combat head that must not be caught, God forbid, as one who is committed to standards that are not the shelling of the enemy, received maximum expression in an event that should have been a wake-up call at a deafening volume. Channel 14 is today a central axis in the trade route of governmental consciousness, a factor that provides unbridled propaganda on the one hand but also greatly influences policy on the other. It does so with tools that sometimes masquerade as journalism and certainly hide most of the time under freedom of speech, and therefore the damage is enormous and perhaps even irreversible.
Until a few years ago, before the transition from Channel 20 to 14, negligence as a policy of the body that beats Torah into the "left-wing media" was perceived by many on the spectrum between a curiosity on the margins to birth pangs that there would be no choice but to grow out of, in order to create credibility among viewers who felt truly and genuinely suffocated and invisible in the mainstream media. This is long no longer the story, and exactly the opposite happened: Channel 14 is today a central axis in the trade route of governmental consciousness, a factor that provides unbridled propaganda on the one hand but also greatly influences policy on the other. It does so with tools that sometimes masquerade as journalism and certainly hide most of the time under freedom of speech, and therefore the damage is enormous and perhaps even irreversible: contrary to the fantasies that politicians spread, this madness is not going anywhere even if the flow of benefits from the current government stops. The truth is that only the public will decide what meaning it attributes to the truth, and how it intends to punish, if at all, those who run it over with tanks or a phone camera. The upcoming elections are also about this, and that is why they are so fateful.
