Haaretz is to Blame for Bibi - Part B: This is Not How You Build a Wall

"Haaretz" chose to collapse under rating constraints and hide behind a paywall - the only one in the country! - due to a lack of consideration for alternatives, and mainly - due to a lack of thought about the implications of the decision. Israeli society and the community of Haaretz readers were affected by it in two opposite ways - which severed their connection to each other

Head against the wall. And then they wonder about the brainwashing Bibi did to Israelis  (Source)

Recently, Haaretz came out with the headline: "The establishment of 'Israel Hayom' - the fateful day in Netanyahu's career". The claim was that in light of his criminal entanglement in media matters, the reason he brought forward the previous elections (media), and in general in light of all his relations with the media (media!) - the gift given by a tycoon who is also a newspaper owner to Netanyahu years ago appears to be the turning point in his career, as well as in the Israeli ideological shift towards the deep right. But there is another tycoon who is also a newspaper owner, who gave Netanyahu a gift perhaps no less significant years ago, which in retrospect was also a central point in the Israeli shift towards the deep right. His name is Schocken. And this gift is called a paywall.

If there's one additional gift Netanyahu would ask for, besides a free, open, supportive, and loving house newspaper, it's for the opposite newspaper, the most prestigious and opposing one in the market, to hide behind a wall, preventing it from reaching audiences beyond its most loyal base. Haaretz would only convince the already convinced, and Israel Hayom would convince everyone else. In both cases, it's the same exact irrigation method, slow but very effective over time for growing trends: the drip method. In Haaretz, it's more sophisticated and covert, and therefore much more effective and dangerous than the rather transparent method of Israel Hayom, which is why it was very important that it not reach the wider public in Israel.

What did the paywall in Haaretz create? First of all, the wall is transparent to those inside it. For those who read the content, it's easy to quickly forget about all those who are unable to read, and to feel as if the published things have serious resonance in Israeli society. They don't. Even the writers themselves forget this, because they can read everything, as can those around them, and consciousness suppresses how far this is from the situation in the outside world. Before the wall, and for years, Haaretz was a pioneer in digital media, and in fact had a much higher starting point than Israel Hayom, and much higher than the exposure it enjoyed before the digital age (something like 700,000 monthly visitors then, today it would probably have exceeded one or two million or more, compared to the order of tens of thousands today who read the content inside the wall).

In a more fundamental sense, the wall is a bubble - and creates a bubble consciousness. The discourse in Haaretz gradually became a closed, internal discourse of a group talking to itself, whose echo chamber is limited and relatively homogeneous and is also unaware of what happens (and is read) outside it. Hand an average Haaretz subscriber an issue of Israel Hayom (for free!) and you'll get a surprised look and a sense of horror. Yes, Bibi created a huge bubble outside the wall. Something like the difference between the old Yishuv in the Old City and the huge metropolis of our days - after leaving the walls. Within the secluded settlement of Haaretz, there are fashionable and changing waves of moral panic, a lot of representation politics of "I think", few new ideas, exclusion of unconventional voices, and very little discourse with the Israeli reality outside it - and it's entirely mutual.

What used to be the homepage for many Israelis (who are very far from Meretz [left-wing party]) has become a distant memory of a strange and reclusive media outlet (while all Israeli internet is wide open for free!) somewhere within the large Bibi state. If Bibi didn't bother to slander Haaretz from time to time - who would still hear about it? Haaretz has become the ultra-Orthodox of the media. Hated. Unknown. Reclusive. Misunderstood. With all sorts of strange rabbis and strange language and strange boycotts. From a leading media outlet - to a pashkevil [wall poster used in ultra-Orthodox communities].

The Bitch, of course, bypasses the wall through breaches in the fence and has never paid a shekel, but she is aware that due to her special body structure, few are capable like her of squeezing through. If not for fear of plugging the breaches (what's called enemy consciousness, for "Haaretz" is reading here too!) - she would detail them here as a service to the public. Because it's simply against the DNA of the wider Israeli public to pay (for content and for other things. And much more than other nations, because after all, we're not suckers). The fact is that Haaretz - a pioneer of wall and tower - remains the only closed one (!) in the country. On the other hand, a newspaper costs money. So what the hell does the Bitch want from poor Schocken?

First of all, she wants the insight that a media outlet in the internet age is no longer a business venture - but an ideological one. This is not the type of business intended for profit. It's an economic fact that is also a conceptual change. The desire to remain a business organization - is the Marxist root cause for the degeneration of Haaretz. It's true that there's also a depletion of spirit in Haaretz, but without flour there is no Torah [without sustenance there is no learning]. Although Schocken maintains Haaretz's independence to a commendable degree, and in general he personally deserves much appreciation, but independence is the previous war, as today he loses in the campaign day by day and hour by hour, in what is no less than a war over the spirit of the state. It's impossible to establish a new "Haaretz" out of nothing and the fact is there's no competition - but this situation also entails responsibility. In the end, "Haaretz" doesn't belong to Schocken but to us - its readers who are also ultimately its writers.

The moment Haaretz chose the wrong solutions for the new media situation, it doomed itself to inevitable decline and decay, to a slow, torturous, and probably unnecessary death. Even today, it has no way to be a successful business venture and also be a successful newspaper. It's a contradiction in terms. The tensions are too strong for human forces (and yes, there is no Hercules in Haaretz today): more traffic - lower quality. The dominance of traffic thinking - a decline in content thinking. A decline in quality, fewer interesting and quality contents - a decline in reading. A decline in reading - less money. Less money - choosing writers at a lower intellectual level who bring more traffic, layoffs and getting rid of more elitist writers and less content. Occasionally managing to reach a more stable state, but then as always in the internet age comes a technological change like Facebook, or a policy change within Facebook, and again throws into a spin. This is what's called: collapse dynamics. You can delay it - you can't prevent it. And if Haaretz does survive it - it's only because it's turning into Mako [popular Israeli news website]. And then what have we done? Maybe what we're doing today - instead of collapsing economically we collapsed spiritually. Instead of business bankruptcy - cultural and intellectual bankruptcy. And if "Haaretz" chooses to commit suicide - isn't it better to die by your own sword?

Only after all the weight of this penny drops - weighing about two million people in the State of Israel, plus all the historical weight of Haaretz as a vital secular cultural institution - then we can talk. Because what Schocken needed to understand is that he's not Adelson. That this weight is greater than his shoulders (including reinforcement players from Germany) - and also too significant to fall. A sense of true lack of choice would have made it clear that Haaretz needs to find a patron of Sheldon's weight. Schocken is not a tycoon, but there's no shortage of Jewish tycoons in the world who care about Israel's image - no less than the owners of Israel Hayom. There's also no shortage of European donors for peace. A huge donor or a coalition of donors could even turn Haaretz into a free newspaper - as a counterweight to Israel Hayom. If that day had come, and the walls had fallen and opened wide, perhaps after a few years it would have turned out to be a day no less important than the day Israel Hayom first appeared, the day when finally another pendulum shift began in Israeli consciousness, and this time towards the left - and maybe even towards peace.

A well-funded "Haaretz" could also hire ten Gidi Weitzs who would work for years and comb through Bibi's hair with iron investigations - until putting him behind iron bars. After all, his lice are the size of elephants (or whales), and they could have been exposed long ago. But even a not well-funded "Haaretz" could have done this - to focus effort. Even a not well-funded "Haaretz" could have opened the paywalls during election periods. You know what? Just two weeks before the elections. Just for introduction (here's even some business logic in it). If "Haaretz" had understood that just as Bibi has a mouthpiece, the left also deserves a propaganda leaflet, and that it is first and foremost an ideological project and not a business one - these things could have happened even today. But "Haaretz", as organizations tend to do, chose not to rethink itself, not to change perception when reality changed, to cling to the conception - and to wither. And it's a great pity, because "Haaretz" as a free newspaper could have been a wonderful gift to Bibi.