On Thursday, my Political Communications teacher took us to Tel Aviv for the day. We visited Galei Tzahal, Galgalatz, Ha'aretz, and Channel 10.
Galei Tzahal is Israel's national army radio station. It was the first station in Israel to broadcast 24 hours a day, and has a more colloquial language format, making it popular with teenagers (who like the less-haughty language), and senior citizens (many of whom are not native Hebrew speakers and would not understand more formal language). It is based in a run-down neighborhood of Jaffa, which is an Arab city next to Tel Aviv. As Galei Tzahal is an army radio station, it also functions as an army base-albeit more of a low-key one, as plenty of civilians work there too. There are soldiers walking around in uniform, but they are mostly youngsters who want a future in journalism, radio, or music. We got to see different parts of the base, including the news desks, internet publishing rooms, and broadcasting rooms.
Galgalatz is mostly a music station, which is an offshoot of Galei Tzahal and is in the same building. It is one of the most (if not the most) popular stations in Israel and in fact, because it is also streamed online, many people from outside of Israel listen to it as well. We had the opportunity to see the studio and listen to the announcer recording, and then to head over to the music library. There we met the guy who is in charge of the thousands of songs Galgalatz has in possession. We got free stickers. It was cool. ;)
Then we headed over to Ha'aretz, which is Israel's 3rd biggest newspaper, but with the most sophisticated reporting. We met with someone, I think he was the head of the news desk or an editor there or something? We learned some really interesting stuff about the paper and Israeli journalism, and got free newspapers and water. (Can you tell I like free stuff?)He then showed us the newsroom and we were able to meet Gideon Levy, quite possibly one of the most inflammatory controversial reporters in Israel. (Go to www.haaretz.com and read some of his articles, you'll see what I mean!) It wasn't a planned thing so he didn't have anything prepared but we got to ask him a few questions and hear his controversial views.
After lunch at the Azrieli Center (MALL! SHOPPING! CONSUMERISM! AHH!--can you tell I miss the shopping Jerusalem does NOT offer?), we headed over to Channel 10 News, one of the big news channels (although they do produce other shows other than news-there were ads around for some weight loss competition show, I guess America isn't the only country that offers stupid, brain-numbing reality shows). We saw the news rooms, control rooms, the studio, and a room full of Arabic specialists keeping tabs on al-Jazeera and other Arab stations. Of course there were TVs broadcasting news from everywhere in the world, and I SAW CNN ON SOME OF THEM! Not that I was even a big CNN junkie at home, but it's so exciting to see things like that in Israel. We saw the anchor get ready for filming the 5:00 news, he was wearing jeans and a shirt with a too-short tie. But he slipped on a suit jacket, sat down, and no one could see the fashion faux pas anymore. From the control room we could see the digital editing happening on the spot and then the final product being broadcast on national television.
The need for fluent English speakers in this field was evident to me throughout the day, especially at Ha'aretz which publishes English editions online and in print. As journalism is a field I've thought about in the past, I was glad to see that there could be a spot for me in this field in Israel.
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