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Excerpt:Almost every work morning for the past 25 years, Steve Leibowitz has risen at 6 to the strains of Reshet Bet’s news bulletin. But as of October 1, the newly retired head of the Israel Broadcasting Authority’s English news department began to sleep in, no longer compelled to keep abreast of the day’s breaking developments. ...
He didn’t have to leave just yet if he didn’t want to, but an attractive early retirement package, coupled with uncertainty about the future of the IBA, were sufficient reason for Leibowitz to bid farewell to what had for so long loomed so large in his life.
“I feel like a beaten-down worker who has been abused and taken advantage of by his employer,” he says. “With the future being so uncertain not only for the IBA, but particularly for the English news, being given a buyout option helped me make the difficult decision.”
Leibowitz is the last of the original team brought in by Joseph Barel, founding father of English-language television news in Israel and a former head of the IBA’s Arabic television department. Knowing the importance of Arabic language broadcasts, the Egyptian-born Barel could well appreciate the importance to diplomats and business people of Israeli news broadcasts in English, so he spearheaded the effort to launch the broadcasts in 1990. ...
IN THE first few years of its existence, the IBA News was generously staffed and given prime-time prominence on Israel Television, with nightly 8 p.m. broadcasts.
Back before the days of cable TV and local commercial TV, Israel Television, as it was known before it became Channel 1, was the only game in town. ...
"I have plans in my drawer that outline the expansion of English news to three hours a day,” he states. “I told numerous IBA heads that we could be the English equivalent of Al Jazeera and could fight the hasbara (public diplomacy) battle through solid Israel-perspective journalism. ...
Interestingly enough, according to Leibowitz, the IBA English News today has many more Christian viewers than Jews, thanks to broadcast deals with Christian networks across the US.
Despite the added revenue track, the plans to minimize the IBA News haven’t abated. With the Knesset’s decision last year to liquidate the IBA and establish another public broadcasting service in its place, Yona Wiesenthal was appointed IBA interim director-general for the duration of the transition period. ...
While pleased that he is going to have more time to devote to his passion of spearheading the Israel Football League, Leibowitz says he’s still contemplating staying in journalism. He was offered a job by a foreign media outlet, but he declined.
“I don’t want to be a foreign correspondent in Israel,” he explains. “I want to report news from an Israeli perspective.”
He’s been doing that for past 25 years, he insists, adding that he has always been careful to mark the dividing line between news reporting and Israeli propaganda. ...
Finishing his coffee and getting ready for one of his last daily editorial meetings, he says: “For decades, we really have been the window to Israel for so many people. But we could have done so much more.” ...
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