Israeli PR Association: IDF spokesperson is Man of the Year

Noam Sheizaf By Noam Sheizaf May 22, 2011 | Edit

Israeli new site Ynet is reporting that IDF spokesperson Avi Benyahu was selected as the Israeli PR and Spokespersons Association’s Man of the Year 2011.

The comic relief is the part explaining the selection:

“Benyahu is known as a man who values and fights for his views and his credibility in the media, and relentlessly aiming to search and expose the truth,” said Silvia Bet-Halachmi, chairman of the PR and Spokespersons association.

I leave it to the readers to reflect on the meaning of this reward. It’s enough to say that Benyahu was (partly) responsible for the arrest of 60 journalists during last year’s flottila incident. The IDF then searched the reporters, confiscated all their media, refused to release it in its entirely but rather edited and used parts of the material in the army’s propaganda campaign and for the Chief of Staff’s local political needs. In a way, I guess this kind of behavior is the wet dream of every PR man, so the PR Association might have a point.

Or as one of my friends wrote on his Facebook wall, “IDF Spokesperson is PR Man of the Year every year, since 1948.”

Noam Sheizaf

Noam Sheizaf is an independent journalist and editor. He was the founding executive director and editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine. Prior to joining +972, he worked for Tel Aviv’s Ha-ir local paper, Ynet, and the Maariv daily, where his last position was deputy editor of the weekend magazine. He is currently working on a number of documentary films.

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