A despicable journalistic act
Sever Plocker outraged at TV channels’ decision to interview Rabin killer Yigal Amir
It was actually merely a matter of time. A matter of time before Israel’s
commercial television channels, who are up to their necks in the filthy rating pit, will find an original way to mark the anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s
assassination: Interviewing
the murderer in prison.
It doesn’t matter how many sophisticated and whiny reservations accompanied the broadcast. They only served as blatant self-righteousness; a case of pretentiousness. Airing the interview with Yigal Amir is a despicable journalist act that can be justified by no mumbling. Our finest commentators won’t be able to validate this shameful act.
“Yigal Amir speaks: This is how I murdered Rabin” – what’s more fitting and popular than such candid interview on the assassination’s 13th anniversary? There we have it, a real scoop; an impressive journalist achievement. Only the fact that two television channels were able to get their hands on such interview may have dampened the spirits a little at the studios, I presume.
Canceled
Meirav Crystal
News company decides to call off scheduled broadcast of interview with late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's killer after preview creates much turmoil among public, political figures
The owners of the television channels will argue that their decision to seek an interview with Yigal Amir – or more accurately, to beg for one – is premised on the public’s right to know. That’s complete nonsense. The Israeli public has no “natural right” to know what murderer Yigal Amir thinks about life, death, and politics, just like it has no natural right to know what a man who raped young girls thinks about love.
Those who seek to bring the thoughts of the rapist and words of the killer to the television screen are motivated by one urge only: Making money out of garbage.
In the past, Israel boasted one of the finest quality television programming in the world. But today you can forget about it. Today, what dominates our television is a combination of infantilism and vulgarity, which gave rise to the doubt non-exclusive interview with Yigal Amir. This interview does not constitute a slippery journalistic slope, but rather, it is the very crash at the bottom; the nadir.
No normal television channel, even the lowliest one in Europe – with the exception of subversive channels specializing in sadistic perversion programming – would have dared present to its viewers, with such victory cries, an interview with a man who assassinated a prime minister.
The journalists would have objected, and the viewers would have protested and turned off their TV sets. Here is a public protest model that we should adopt around here too: Without rating, perhaps the next interview with the next assassin of the next prime minister won’t be aired. At least not in prime time.
