Two weeks ago Channel 10 News’ Miki Haimovich conducted an interview with Nobel laureate Ada Yonath. The following day, Channel 10’s morning show re-edited the interview to make it look as though the morning hosts Haim Etgar and Sivan Cohen are conducting the interview themselves. This was recently mentioned in Yediot Ahronot but I thought I would create a video to demonstrate this journalistic atrocity:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSzzTPSAwGM
Now people may ask “What’s the big deal? Instead of this person doing the interview, you get that person”. Well, I contend that this is a big deal since unlike other professions like advertising, sales or law where honesty is no longer expected – in journalism, credibility is currency. We don’t expect our newsmen to lie to us – not intentionally, not wittingly – and finding out otherwise is disheartening.
Update: You can read in Hebrew about this incident here, here and here.