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Channel 10’s Friday news magazine Shishi raises the standard of reporting each week, literally writing the book on how a news magazine should be done. Anchormen Raviv Drucker and Ofer Shelah’s segment ‘On The Road’, which turned the traditional in-studio interview into a-day-out-with-the-interviewee report, has already been copied by Channel 1’s Ayala Hason and Ben Caspit - including the famous Statler-and-Waldorf-like embedded commentary. In addition to the outstanding ensemble of reporters that the show sports, it is famous for its self-awareness, self-criticism, and a fair amount of ‘process stories’. Shelah and Drucker often criticize the Israeli media, always starting with their own place of work.

The recent security situation in the region triggered the Pavlovian media response of rolling news reports, and when you mix a barrage of rockets, satellite latency, and loads of air time - inevitably you get a fair share of on-camera bloopers. Leave it to Shelah and Drucker to end their show on a lighter note with a compilation of the channel’s reporters supplying a week’s dosage of self-deprecating humor.

The video is in Hebrew but most of it is self-explanatory:

This is part 13 of 13 in the series Songs You Really Have To Listen To

Artist: Ké Track: Strange World Album: I Am [ ] Genre: Rock Label: RCA Release Date: 1996

Ke (aka Kevin Grivois) - Strange World Lyrics

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Is this our last chance to say all we have to say
Hiding here inside ourselves we live our lives afraid
So close your eyes and just believe in everything you’re told
‘cos in this land of great confusion it’s easy to give up control

Strange world people talk and tell only lies
Strange world people kill an eye for an eye
Strange world dream one day we’ll see the light
Strange world believe and everything will be alright

And this is the place where everything begins and ends again
No secrets left to find no seven deadly sins
This world that we have wasted has kept us very well
When science now is sacred who will save us from ourselves

Strange world people talk and tell only lies
Strange world people kill an eye for an eye
Strange world dream one day we’ll see the light
Strange world believe and everything will be alright

Strange world people talk sometimes I wonder why
Strange world people kill still no one hears their cries
Strange world burn these thoughtless tears out of my eyes, eyes

Strange world people talk and tell only lies
Strange world people kill an eye for an eye
Strange world dream one day we’ll see the light, ahh, ahh

Strange world people kill and people hate and
People talk and people kill and still I wonder wonder why, why

Wars don’t happen in winter anymore
Even for us it is a bit too cold to hate
Wars don’t happen in winter anymore
Even for us it’s a bit too cold to conquer
 
   - - “Big Hero” by Si Himan (translated from Hebrew)

I have already written on Israeli journalists playing dress-up, but that was during peacetime. Now that a new war might be imminent, it seems our journalists collectively decided to wear uniform in the form of leather jackets. I have been glued to the TV screen during the past few days, zapping between Channel One, Channel Two and Channel Ten - and it looks like one hideous leatherwear catalog from the 1990’s that magically came to life:

We already knew soldiers have their standard operating procedures - but now we know TV newsmen have them too.
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Vacationing in Göynük, Turkey,
Thinking to myself:
This is how all Muslim countries should be,
Secular, advanced and free.

Logging to YouTube and reading this:

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