Covering The Media

Israel is in a state of emergency. Every year since its creation its parliament has re-approved the Emergency Regulations Bill, allowing for certain democratic processes to be bypassed, chief among them is freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. According to Israeli law, in order to be registered as a media source a company must agree to allow the military censor to review all materials before publication. In the process, most contentious issues get silenced under the state's regular issuance of gag orders. However, according to many journalists in Israel, the main problem of the press is not official silencing, but self-censorship. The resulting media landscape has laid a fertile ground for bloggers (such as The Leftern Wall, Idan Landau, and Yossi Gurvitz), alternative publications, and media criticism sites.  Chief among them, is the photgraphers' collective ActiveStills.