Poll: Majority of Israelis See Bias in Media

Amid the furor over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s accusation of bias against an Israeli journalist this week, a new poll has found that over half of Israelis believe political bias is a major problem in the media.

Yifat Media Research said on Wednesday that according to its data, 53 percent of respondents agreed that there is significant bias in media news coverage.

Shachar Gur, director of Yifat Media, said that “both the media and the public see the politicization of the media as the main threat in the communications industry but from different directions — the media is concerned with political interference in the media and the public is concerned by the political bias of the media itself.”

It wasn’t the only problem on the minds of Israelis. According to the poll, crony capitalism was identified as a major problem by 29 percent of the respondents.

Inordinate media focus on trivial matters was considered a major problem by 27 percent, and 25 percent thought too many advertisements was a major problem. Only 9 percent said that there is no major problem in the media.