Tel Aviv, July 8 – Editors at the popular Israeli website Ynet are toying with the notion of giving their readers news stories beyond celebrity gossip and the latest photos of attractive public figures in swimsuits.
With tensions mounting between Israel and Hamas and an IDF operation in the Gaza Strip apparently imminent, Ynet management has conducted several high-level meetings to discuss the possibility of providing some news or analysis relevant to the developing security and political situation, and if so, perhaps shifting the focus, at least temporarily, from images and stories of scantily clad Bar Refaeli and Moran Atias.
Managing Editor Erva Perutza told PreOccupied Territory that Ynet had experimented with content other than revealing photos and gossip in the past, and still occasionally offers recipes or tips, but that hard news has seldom been a priority. “We had an episode a few months ago in which a big-time entertainer was involved in allegations of a sex scandal, and that was a genuine news item, but that’s not really our core content,” she explained, referring to a statutory rape case against singer Eyal Golan that was dismissed.
But in times of heightened stress over conflict and terrorism, said Perutza, readers often demand more prominent treatment of the issues involved, and will not settle for stories of how the Netanyahus treat their domestic staff. “For some reason the Israeli media consumer sometimes wants drier material related to non-celebrity matters, and we will try to accommodate that demand.” Perutza noted that in recent weeks the World Cup taking place in Brazil has made for a seamless integration of bona fide sports news into Ynet’s forte of stories featuring attractive, seductively dressed women, and the trick would be to tease out the elements of those stories that are not strictly prurient and see whether their staff can handle it over the long term.
Experts say this is as good a time as any to try making the transition. “With the current hunger for non-soft-porn news so high, given the security situation, this is a smart bet for attempting to switch away from an all-bikini, all the time format,” says Aleh T’enah, who writes about Israeli media for the blog Zimmah. “The challenge will come after the peak of the fighting, when other stories can again placed front and center: will Ynet be able to hold the reader’s attention and loyalty through competent journalism, or will they be forced to pull the Gal-Gadot-as-Wonder-Woman images out of their pockets to retain traffic?”
Other media outlets have attempted such a switch, notably Playboy, which decades ago loudly established a reputation for also having compelling articles, though no formal study has been done to confirm the existence of that content.
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