Last month, Israel’s second-most-popular news network, Channel 13, fired 42 of its employees. Some of the channel’s most prominent reporters claimed, or implied, that the Israeli prime minister had pressured the network to fire them for investigating corruption charges against him. While the network’s CEO, Israel Twito, indeed has close ties with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, there is no evidence to support these claims—which have naturally made their way to the international media, and will no doubt contribute to the “Israeli democracy is in peril” narrative. Haviv Rettig Gur explains the real divide behind the shakeup at Channel 13:
Current and former employees describe Twito as the unofficial chieftain of an informal group within the news division that wants it to seek out new audiences and to stop trying to emulate [its more successful chief competitor] Channel 12—and instead to claim ownership of the demographics in Israeli society that are not already flocking to the competition.
“They’re a group that says the channel needs to be more amami [popular and down-to-earth], more sensitive, less ‘leftist’ in the sense of elitist and bitter,” said one employee. “They’re not necessarily for or against Bibi [Netanyahu], but they want the channel to be more connected to the people.” Or as Israelis understand such terms: Mizraḥi.
“If the news broadcast is less Ashkenazi, less liberal, less secular, he thinks that will bring viewers who don’t watch the channel today,” said another employee.
Another vital element that has come to represent the direction for many: Avishai Ben Ḥaim. Ben Ḥaim is formally the channel’s religious-affairs analyst. He holds a doctorate from Hebrew University in ḥaredi Sephardi religious thought and has spent the better part of the past two decades covering Jewish religious movements and spiritual leaders in major Israeli media outlets.
And over the past year, thanks in large part to Twito, he has become a central voice in the Israeli discourse.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/is-israels-channel-13-being-neutered-for-netanyahus-sake-its-not-so-simple/