'Facebook and Twitter? Boycott them, there are other sites'

AuthorCaroline Glick
Published date28 February 2021
Publication titleIsrael National News (Israel)
(JNS) Mark Levin, a Jewish American talk radio host and former Reagan administration official, makes no effort to hide what he thinks. Indeed, what his three-hour radio show's 14 million regular listeners and the millions more who watch his top-rated show on Fox News every Sunday love most about Levin is that he gives them the unvarnished truth as he sees it. And Levin does so with a combination of intellectual depth and populist passion.

Levin's massive audience insulates him from the growing fear of censors that now plagues conservatives in America. At a time when progressive propaganda has become a substitute for news reporting at liberal media organs across the United States, fresh from four years of unrelenting media assaults on former President Donald Trump and his supporters, Levin is a leading voice for millions of Americans who feel increasingly marginalized and besieged.

Ahead of the release of the Hebrew edition of his New York Times bestseller "Unfreedom of the Press," (Sella Meir Publishers), Levin sat down for a conversation with Israel Hayom. He explained what moved him to research the roots of media bias and why he believes the rising extremism of the U.S. media poses a threat to the future of the most powerful democracy in the world.

Levin sees a direct link between the U.S. media's longstanding hostility towards Israel and its burgeoning anti-Americanism. He also sees parallels between the overwhelmingly leftist Israeli media and the U.S. media.

Our conversation was broadcast last week to mark the official launch of the Hebrew edition of his book. What follows are excerpts from our discussion.

"As somebody who watches the Israeli media, the Israeli media is a disaster," Levin begins.

"The American media is a disaster. But at least in America, we have conservative talk radio. You have a few outlets in Israel—not many. And we have Fox News where at least we have some conservative opinion shows. You have nothing like that in Israel. You pretty much have a statist media that backs the left—as small as the left is now politically, the media remains overwhelmingly leftist in Israel.

'The Israeli media is a disaster'

"They are constantly, in my humble opinion, trying to undermine the conservatives, the hawks, the Netanyahu administration. And yet the people of Israel have pretty much rejected the media, haven't they? At least in the last number of elections. The Labor Party really only exists in The Jerusalem Post and some of the other media outlets there. But it's appalling to watch it. It's appalling to watch the lies about the prime minister because I'm very familiar with his legal situation and the law in Israel.

"And I would say the other problem is basically—I hope this doesn't get me in trouble—the founding socialists pretty much adopted the Italian parliamentary system. So you have 412 parties that are constantly running, and if you can pick off three guys maybe you can get a coalition. So it's this constant state of play which is unstable, I think, for democracy.

"Now that said, in my own country over here, we have disasters looming all over the place. Part of the problem is our media. Our media here is a one-party media. I call it 'the Democrat Party Media' because that's what it is. We have individuals in our media who worked in Democrat presidential administrations, Democrat presidential campaigns, who worked for members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, and vice versa.

"The media in our country is at the tip of the spear dividing our country in many vile ways. They talk about incitement of an insurrection in our country and they're attacking former President Donald Trump for that. He didn't incite an insurrection.

"If the president of the United States wanted to lead an insurrection, I don't think he would've sent 200 militia guys from all over the country into the Capitol. I think he would have sent in the Marines. But that's quite beside the point. What about the left, and their language and their incitement? How do we know that doesn't anger people and cause people to do things they ought not to do?

"But all that said, it's kind of hard to maintain a republic, a civil society, rational debate when you have a media that has no interest in reporting the news. There are many ways you can affect the news—one is by censorship, not reporting the news even though something is newsworthy. And the other is of course with political bias. I am 63 years old and I have never seen anything like what is going on in...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT