The press and the par?liament in Israel have a symbiotic relationship far stronger than in any other country in the world, according to a recent study by Prof. Shevah Weiss who is a Labor member of the Knesset.
He found that 63 percent of the questions submitted by MKs to government ministers and 84 percent of the motions presented in the Knesset are based on material or disclosures published in the media.
Of the 120 Knesset members, 29 are regular contributors to the press and eight were in fact journalists before they entered politics. Weiss said that a comparison between “quality” newspapers in the U.S. and Israel showed that the latter devoted proportionately three times more space to news of the Knesset than the American papers gave news of Congress.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
