The Israeli Journalists Association and a workers committee of the new Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, known as Kan, have petitioned the Supreme Court to force the government to implement the Public Broadcasting Law and enable Kan to begin broadcasting.
The new broadcasting authority is supposed to provide better quality programming at a lower cost than the current Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and be free of the political and union interference that critics say has characterized the IBA.
The new authority was established by the Public Broadcasting Law in 2015 and was supposed to start broadcasting on October 1, 2016. However, a late-night Knesset vote on August 4 delayed the opening until April 30, 2017. Prime Minister Netanyahu supported a longer delay, till 2018, but agreed to the compromise. Meanwhile, the new authority has already hired workers and is producing programming while the cash-strapped IBA has reportedly been losing many workers in anticipation of its demise.
The petition claims that Prime Minister and Communications Minister Netanyahu, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblitt, and the Ministry of Communications have acted in “in violation of the Public Broadcasting Act and contrary to its clear wording and its spirit and purpose.”
According to the petitioners, the situation is causing “severe damage to the corporation’s employees who had put their faith in the new law as well as severe damage to a free press caused by attempts to nullify the checks and balances that are part of the new law, both regarding the appointment of journalists and managers and regarding the content.”