Page 58 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Concepts and Models

AnotherinterestingexamplecomesfromIsrael(whosejournalismcan
trace its historical roots in part to central Europe). In 1989, the Canadian
publisher Hollinger, Inc. bought The Jerusalem Post, and quickly moved
to establish control over the political line of the English-language paper.
The Jerusalem Post had for many years been owned by economic institu-
tions connected with the Labor party – a common pattern in Europe as
well; Conrad Black, then the owner of Hollinger, is politically conserva-
tive. The editor, Erwin Frenkel, objected to the new publisher’s attempts
to interfere with journalistic decisions and soon resigned, as did thirty
4
other journalists. He explained his resignation in a column in the Post
this way:

Journalismisanenterpriseinsocialjudgment.Theobjectofthat
judgment is the historical present, the fast flood of daily events.
Journalism plucks from this infinite flow those events deemed
worthy of public regard, reporting them as honest witness. That
it calls news. It assigns such news events weights of importance
and interest. And it seeks, by further interpretive judgment, to
help place those events in a more explicit context of narrative
understanding.
It does all this on behalf of the society of which it is a part, in
the conviction that the “news” it so delivers is essential feedback
in helping that society best steer itself. In that sense, journalism is
guardian of a public trust.
In a newspaper this process of judgment is a collective effort. It
has checks and balances. But judgment it remains. For that reason
all newspapers have a character of their own, telling the story of the
present as they perceive it.
To give that collective judgment coherence and to protect it from
influences that would divert it in their favour, there is the editor
and his authority. In the end, it is his voice, his judgment over what
is fit to print, that would save this collective process from chaos or
corruption. So long as his judgment of what is fit to print is not
subject to fear or favour.

4 The case produced an interesting judgment in Court of Labour Disputes: granting
severance compensation to journalists. The judge expressed the view – commonaswe
will see in many countries in Northern and Central Europe where it is sometimes
referred to as internal press freedom – that press freedom requires that editors and
reporters have freedom of expression and limits the right of media owners to interfere
with their work.

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