Reaction
In response, the Second Israeli Broadcasting Authority decided to "condemn poignantly this unacceptable behavior of Telad and its director, Uzi Peled, in the critical moments of the bloody suicide attack in Jerusalem". Moreover, it decided to take extreme punitive measures, and added that this decision followed previous events in which Telad refused to interrupt broadcasting football in order to report about terrorist acts. In actuality, the promised punitive measures were never applied.
Uzi Peled replied: "Telad handed the broadcast to the News Company when the first report was received, and around 20:00, when the size of the disaster was not yet known, we decided to broadcast using a split screen for about 10 minutes, without commercials and without voice from the football match. We did not have any economical concerns, we lost over one million shekels. After ten minutes, as we understood there were fatalities in the attack, we stopped the broadcast of the football match entirely. Retroactively, had we known the magnitude of the event, we sure wouldn't have chosen to split the screen".
This decision is considered as one on the lowest points in Arutz 2's image, and Telad's in particular. It was followed by harsh criticism both by journalists and by the general public. Some attribute Telad's loss of its franchising rights, three years later, to this event.
Read more about this topic: Ha Shidur Ha Mefutzal
Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“Christianity was only a very strong and singularly well-timed Salvation Army movement that happened to receive help from an unusual and highly dramatic incident. It was a Puritan reaction in an age when, no doubt, a Puritan reaction was much wanted; but like all sudden violent reactions, it soon wanted reacting against.”
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“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)