Over half of the Israeli public believes the media is hostile toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a new poll found Tuesday.
The survey was performed by the Maagar Mochot Research Institute for the Sammy Ofer School of Communications at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, ahead of the IDC's annual DIGIT conference for digital journalism, scheduled to take place on April 9.
The poll found that 48% of Israelis agreed that the media is biased against Netanyahu, 35% disagreed with this assertion and 17% said they had no opinion on the issue.
If the figures are adjusted only from those who expressed an opinion, then 58% believe this claim to be true.
Asked whether they thought media reports affected the corruption investigations into the prime minister, 47% said they believe the media impact the investigations, 25% thought the media had some effect on the probes, 19% said it had no effect on the investigation, and 9% said they did not know.
Netanyahu relationship with the media has sunk to an unprecedented low over the past year. Netanyahu has often said he is persecuted by the press and is not treated fairly. Many of the prime minister's associates have accused the media of being a tool in the police's hands with respect to the three investigations in which he is involved.
A segmentation of the results showed that older Israelis (44%) tended to believe the media was hostile toward Netanyahu more than younger Israelis (26%). Respondents with post-secondary education disagreed with this assertion compared with those with a high school education (38% to 26%), and Jews were more inclined to agree with this claim than Arabs (55% to 21%).
Some 31% of respondents said they consumed news online, 21% cited social media as their news source, 19% said they watch the news on television, and 15% named the radio as their main news source.
As for how professional Israeli journalists are in general, 25% said television journalists were the most reliable, 9% expressed the most confidence in radio journalists, 8% said the printed press was the most credible, and 6% said the same of online reporters.
"Israeli media should not and cannot cover the prime minister's investigations simply to cater to public opinion. Still, the public's faith in the media's motives and journalists integrity will determine the media's relevance and impact," DIGIT conference chairman Roy Katz said.
The survey, held throughout March, combined online and telephone polling and multiparticipant panels among the various sectors. It included a random sample of 504 respondents ages 16 and over and had a 4.5% margin of error.
