I reported on Friday that Israel’s parliament had passed a law banning journalists working for the country’s public broadcast authority from expressing their opinions on air.
But, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post, there is now “a strong likelihood” that the clause will be rescinded.
Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is also minister for communications, is said to believe that journalistic ethics should be governed not by law but by moral considerations.
It is therefore thought that he will work towards overturning the clause inserted into the country’s public broadcasting law by Rabbi Israel Eichler, a United Torah Judaism member of the Knesset and formerly a journalist.
Eichler later said it was “an interim clause” and not intended as a means of muzzling the media. What he was trying to achieve he said, was to keep personal opinion out of news reports.
Source: Jerusalem Post
