Ben Eliezer’s comment above was very striking – This is no longer reporting but creation of the narrative & news in a vicious circle of justification which propels & feeds itself. Something must be done, people may think I am over reacting but the feeling in Israel by media outlets even themselves this past week was and I quote channel 1 – “We have altered the democratic process”.

That’s a very serious admission. They will still flog their own agenda, but at least now perhaps they won’t be tempted to back up a fictitious narrative with fictitious numbers & literally alter the democratic process in Israel. They have become so gallant as to call the election and go home before voting has even ceased based on their own sampling!! NO VOTE COUNTS! This is despite any reservations totally untenable. This is not an isolated case here or there, but every single poll and all three major media outlets, that is collusion similar to the need for RICO laws imho. Organized attempts to alter elections processes are in fact against the law, I don’t see a need to grant a pass to these efforts by media, on the contrary I am willing to try to reign it in even it it backfires - at least an effort to marginalize it was made. Please understand between our corruption which clearly goes all the way to the top, our media, our coalitions, and now this media twisting in a small country people feel rather helpless, robbed of their voice. This is totally unacceptable in a Democracy. Media feels untouchable here, its time to send the message they can be more than touched, they can be thrown in prison like the Prime Minister himself.

If the left merits legitimate wins so be it, same for the right I think, good or bad guys it is time people’s vote be respected, right now people feel they shouldn’t even bother, because they are facing an onslaught as media is all powerful in this day and age in this country. These are much smaller markets here, try and absorb the all powerful effect it has that every single outfit parrots the same fake information over & over again day in & out.. It’s like 1984, literally big brother programming the result. it happened with Olmert too, forecasted 44 SEATS!! real result 29 – This is obscene. Despite the reservation we have to try..

Not allowing the publication of exit polling early, might not be bad, but other rules can be used just as easily against the good guys.

When Barak beat Netanyahu, I heard a talk show ask if this was good or bad. So I called in and asked, “If the NY Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal all opposed President Clinton on both their news pages and editorial pages would he have survived the Monica scandal?”

He answered “no.” I said that’s pretty much what you had in Israel with all the major papers (except for the J-Post) actively campaigning against Netanyahu, it was virtually impossible for him to win again. It’s really a  bad state of affairs, but are press restrictions likely to make the case better or worse?

Better encourage unofficial journalism (like blogs) and break the media stranglehold like that rather than trusting regulation to do the job.