Members of media watchdog group \"Israel\'s Media Watch\" had a unique opportunity yesterday to meet with Amos Goren and Giora Rosen, the Ombudsmen - complaints commissioners - of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and the Second Broadcasting Authority, respectively. The occasion was the group\'s annual meeting, held at the Ramada Hotel in Jerusalem. \"Goren and Rosen fielded the same amount of complaints last night that they usually receive in the course of several months,\" one participant later observed. Most of the complaints dealt with the media\'s leftward tilt and with the paucity of nationalistic and Jewish programming on Israeli television. \"Goren tried to mollify the audience,\" Arutz-7\'s Effie Meir reports, \"by reminding them of the broadcast of the Daily Verse, a weekly Torah lecture by Rabbi Moti Elon, and a Friday news magazine that is spiced with Torah verses - and he said this in all seriousness.\"
Both Goren and Rosen admitted that even if an announcer is found to be overly one-sided, there is generally not much they can do - unless the bias is very exaggerated, as in a recent case of a program that was discontinued. Regarding the issuance of a tender for a Judaica-oriented station scheduled for later this year, Rosen said that he fears that it will be held up by disputes over the type of Jewish programming to be featured.
Both Goren and Rosen admitted that even if an announcer is found to be overly one-sided, there is generally not much they can do - unless the bias is very exaggerated, as in a recent case of a program that was discontinued. Regarding the issuance of a tender for a Judaica-oriented station scheduled for later this year, Rosen said that he fears that it will be held up by disputes over the type of Jewish programming to be featured.