media media media

It is unclear what the purpose of the media is in Israel. Are they strictly a powerful force with an agenda that they are trying to push into reality, is their goal to get the regular folks to hate everything to do with authority or are they just publishing unethicval stories because that's what people want to read and they want to sell newspapers.

One of the lead stories today was about a car crash that killed 5 people.
A citizen called the police and said a car was driving recklessly. The station he called was not the correct one for the road he was on, so they told him who to call. He called the other station and they told him to fax in a report and they would look at it. Two hours later the car crash happened and it was the same type of car that the citizen had reported was driving recklessly.
The police responded to the story by saying that they send a police car out on the road and didn't find anything and are not positive that it was the same car that the guy complained about.
The point of the story was how bad the police are. Obviously they promised an investigation and there are certainly some things that could have been done better. For example, if you call 100 (911 in Israel), the people there should say thank you we'll check it out as soon as we can. If they aren't responsible for that section of the road then they should coordinate
with the people who are. They shouldn't tell the citizen to call someone else. He isn't reporting a stolen bicycle, he is reporting a real and current danger.
That being said, the reports that are out there have a very very minor aspect of the police version of the story. There was no reporting as to the possibility that the car crash was in fact the same car that the guy reported on. It happened to be the same make.
I agree that it is much sexier to have a report where the guy called and reported and the police ignored him and then the car got into an accident, but there was no investigative reporting to see if that actually happened. That is what could have happened.

Aside from that in todays exciting news, we have the guy in charge of intelligence in the northern area where the soldier kidnapping took place before the war broke out getting a promotion. This is in line with Olmert removing the blockade on Lebanon and saying "screw you" to the people of Israel. The cartoon in the yisraeli newspaper today was olmert talking to blair looking out over the big protest in rabin square yesterday saying, "they think I care."

It turns out his entire prime ministry is just one big "screw you" to the people of Israel. He thinks he is Louis XIV, in the grand words of train talk.