Yedioth publisher Arnon Mozes
Photo: Motti Kimchi
Yifat Erlich
The freedom to write
Op-ed: I have written in favor of Netanyahu and against the anti-Bibi campaign. I have written against my colleagues. And every morning, I am surprised to see my uncensored column, blatant and harsh, in black and white, in Arnon Mozes’s ‘leftist’ paper.
Yedioth Ahronoth is not my natural home. I grew up in a different flowerbed. From the outside, I used to look at the paper with a lot of suspicion. I would read it occasionally, but I had a different newspaper on my table on the weekend, Makor Rishon, the paper I wrote for for several years.
A little over two years ago, I found myself at Yedioth Ahronoth. I heard that they were looking for different opinions for the point-counterpoint column, and I offered my services. I wasn’t called to the newspaper, so I am undoubtedly not part of the “bribe” allegedly offered to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu and Mozes. Even if he wanted to, Yedioth’s owner cannot negotiate the integrity, the courage and the professionally of diligent and talented editors and reporters (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, AFP)
It wasn’t easy for me to shake off the suspicions. Every time, I was surprised by the fact that I wasn’t being censored by Arnon "Noni" Mozes’ "leftist" newspaper. I wrote in favor of Bibi. I wrote against the persecution campaign waged against Bibi. I wrote harshly against my colleagues. And every morning, I was surprised to see my column, blatant and severe, in black and white, in Noni’s leftist paper.
This week, I asked myself if I was perhaps painting over reality in retrospect, if I was perhaps suffering from the syndrome of instinctively defending my workplace. So I dug into my columns.
Here are a few quotes: “Benjamin Netanyahu can be criticized, Benjamin Netanyahu should be criticized, Benjamin Netanyahu must be criticized, but even criticism has its limits. It has to be logical and well-based, not just automatic criticism every time the prime minister sneezes.”
And immediately after the elections, I wrote: “I feel joy. Not malicious joy, God forbid. My joy is much more restrained than the ecstasy celebrations the ‘Just not Bibi’ camp would have produced had it won the elections… I feel sad for some of my best friends, my colleagues, publicists, journalists, editors, directors, broadcasters, who for years now, between one vacation abroad and another, have been fighting the war of the robbed people in Zion. With self-confidence and patronage, they speak on behalf of the majority of the people, while being so detached from these good people. The people have spoken at the polls.”
The column wasn’t censored. It received a reference on the first page of the newspaper. It was clear to me then and it’s clear to me now: Yedioth Ahronoth has an agenda. I haven’t always liked it, but I could always say it out loud to the editor, and most importantly, I could write things in the newspaper in a different spirit.
“You are being exploited as the exception,” my friends said to me. Perhaps, I pondered. And what about Yoaz Hendel? And Ben-Dror Yemini? And Hanoch Daum? And Sivan Rahav-Meir?
As my trust in the newspaper and in its professional editors increased, my work in the newspaper was expanded. Alongside opinion pieces, I began writing features. As time went by, I realized that I have a lot of power in the newspaper. In Yedioth’s weekend supplement, not a single article is printed before being approved by the reporter. I learned that I can demand to change a headline. I learned to shout. I learned that I have full journalistic freedom. Yes, yes, in Noni’s leftist newspaper, the one I didn’t want to bring into my home, the one that became my professional home.
And the owner of this newspaper, even if he wanted to, cannot negotiate away the integrity, courage and professionalism that belong to me, my friends and diligent and talented editors and reporters.
Arnon Mozes is the publisher and owner of the Yedioth Ahronoth Group, which includes Ynet.
