Keshet, the prominent of the two franchisees that operate Israel's leading Channel 2, has developed an innovative, growing, and sticky income avenue, namely, receiving payment in exchange for embedding government propaganda in journalistic television programs. The incorporation of propaganda materials in these programs is made possible by virtue of a special permit issued by The Second Authority for Television and Radio.

The permit, which was aimed at allowing monitoring of content acquisition, effectively sanctions a covert, lucrative, and potentially harmful relationship between the government and media corporations. Documents that The Seventh Eye website received from The Second Authority under the Freedom of Information Law expose for the first time the scope of the phenomenon and how government funds influence the composition of the content broadcasted on commercial television.

The Second Authority documents, spanning over the last 18 months, suggest that the most popular platform for such engagements with external parties is not necessarily high-rated entertainment and reality shows, but rather current affairs and magazine shows, primarily the programs "People" and "Live at Night" produced by Kastina Productions owned by Amnon Rabi and "Keshet's Morning", produced by Tishrei Communications in which Rabi is a minority shareholder.

In exchange for the government advertising funds, the shows presenters conduct interviews and field segments with and about the funding parties, and with that help them promote their interests, and in certain cases even their personal image. The preference of current affairs and magazine shows over entertainment shows helps create the feeling that the promotional content is the product of independent journalistic work.

Over the last few years, Keshet has successfully turned its magazine shows into profitable funded content enterprises, to the point that an informed viewing gives the impression that it was the original intention behind their development. The franchisee Reshet and Channel 10 have had similar engagements with external parties, however according to the documents received from The Second Authority – not to the same extent and not in the same way that the phenomenon is manifested in the programming of Keshet, which in the last couple of years has managed to build a diverse and exclusive clientele.

Keshet's management forbade employees from speaking to The Seventh Eye about the company's engagements with government entities, and refused to answer a series of questions on the subject. Keshet's CEO, Avi Nir, also chose not to discuss the matter. Nevertheless, several government and non-government entities confirmed that millions of NIS received by the franchisee in the last couple of years have led to an extensive embedding of government and other messages in its programming.

Green Light For the Government, Red Light For the Private Sector

In the last couple of years, with the expansion of the Israeli and international covert advertising industry, government offices and nonprofit organizations have also embraced this growing avenue of influence. In the case of the increasingly dominant involvement of such entities in Channel 2's programming composition, rather than calling it "covert advertising" or "promotional content", the funded relationship is referred to as "locally produced collaboration". Despite the euphemism, the nature of the content broadcasted in such "collaborations" is not necessarily different from prohibited covert advertising for which fines are imposed on the franchisees. The difference is in the identity of the funding entity.

As a rule, The Second Authority prohibits the franchisees from broadcasting segments and interviews funded by business entities. When The Authority finds conclusive evidence to the existence of prohibited agreement of this kind, it penalizes the franchisees, imposing fines of up to hundreds of thousands NIS, and sometimes even demands the show will be taken off the air. However, when the funding party is a government entity or a nonprofit organization, the franchisees are allowed to ask for a permit in advance – and The Second Authority is authorized to allow them to broadcast funded content.

In contrast to the prohibited kind of covert advertising, whose incorporation in the programming is sometimes conducted through mediators while blurring the money trail, government entities that fund covert propaganda with the taxpayers' money are obligated to transparency. Data that The Seventh Eye received from several government ministries indicates that in 2014 and in the first half of 2015, over 10 million NIS were paid to Keshet alone as part of campaigns that included the embedding of government content in its programming. Additional undisclosed amounts were paid to Keshet by public entities and nonprofits.

The very existence of a situation in which money sets up a give and take relationship between the subject of a coverage and journalistic editorial staff puts journalists and presenters on the threshold of a slippery slope. While most of the funded content embedded in Keshet's programming is not explicitly political or controversial – notable examples include the road safety campaign and the promotion of adopting children at risk – the content sometimes ventures beyond the scope of the campaign and serves the minister's personal image.

The quintessential example of how payment for the promotion of government campaigns corrupts the editorial reporting is the funded relationship between the former Minister of Education, Rabbi Shai Piron, and Yedioth Aharonot Group. While officially the Ministry of Education paid for the publicity of content that promotes different pedagogic initiatives, the articles that accompanied this content in the newspaper and on Ynet website have featured Piron prominently, and included interviews and columns written by him (another example is the coverage that accompanied a similar engagement between Mozes Group and the Ministry of Science headed by the former Minister Yaakov Peri).

In contrast to Yedioth Aharonot and the Israeli printed media in general, commercial television in Israel operates under the supervision of a public regulator – The Second Authority – whose function is to formulate rules of conduct for commercial television and oversee their implementation.

The document that allows funded "collaborations" with government offices is the Rules of the Second Authority for Television Broadcast by a Franchisee. The permit to broadcast covert propaganda is a later addition to these rules, after it had been exposed in the beginning of the previous decade that Channel 2 franchisees regularly receive funds in exchange for producing programs that promote the agendas of external parties – an unregulated and highly compromised practice.

The original version of the rules specified the types of entities with which the franchisees are allowed to create joint productions – mostly production foundations and broadcasting companies. However, after the end of the second tender for Channel 2 broadcasting franchise in 2005, the rules were changed, and the list of approved entities was expanded to include government entities and nonprofit organizations.

National Goals

When a franchisee wishes to sign a propaganda agreement with a government office, its representative writes to The Second Authority Television Division, presents the collaboration at hand, and pledges to meet its rules. When The Second Authority considers an appeal of this kind, its people examine two key parameters: funding (the rules stipulate that the franchisee must declare that it is the main funder of the production costs) and content – does the engagement serve a broad public goal or merely the PR needs of the ministry, minister, or senior administration.

Accordingly, the request for permit is oftentimes phrased in bombastic rhetoric that attributes a far reaching social impact to the funded content. A request from last May, signed by Tal Moise from Keshet's regulation department, demonstrates the persuading mechanism at work: "Over the last few years, we have witnessed more and more terrorist attacks and Anti-Semitic incidents around the world," wrote Keshet's representative to The Second Authority, "As recent as last January, the entire world was shaken by the attack on the Paris Jewish market Hypercacher, in which four Jewish hostages were murdered. While it is an extreme event, sadly, it is far from an isolated incident".

And so, in the aim of fighting Anti-Semitism and tightening the bond between Diaspora Jews and the State of Israel, the letter continues, Keshet asks for a permit to sell a segment of its broadcasting time that is not an open advertisement to the Masa Project of the Jewish Agency and the Prime Minister's office (the letters do not mention sums or use terms like "funding" or "selling"; these are regularly replaced with the whitewashed term "collaboration").

In return, the letter explains, the program "People" will feature content defined as "television segments centered around stories of young people who came to Israel through Masa". In this case, Anti-Semitism seems like an excuse: Keshet's contribution to the fight against hatred of Jews around the world consists in promoting the personal stories of new immigrants.

Masa Project, which is funded by the Jewish Agency and the Prime Minister's office, refused to disclose the sums paid for the segments in the program "People". The organization also refused to disclose the sums paid for embedding similar content in the top rated cooking competition "Master Chef", as well as in another "collaboration" with the program "People" in 2014. Keshet also refused to disclose information about the engagement with the generously funded organization.

We encounter the motif of concealment once again in Keshet's attitude towards its viewership. One of The Second Authority rules requires that the franchisees clearly mark any "collaboration" with an external entity. This directive, explicitly reiterated in every permit issued by The Second Authority, receives a lax interpretation at Keshet: a tiny and vague caption that flashes briefly on the screen, informing the viewers that the program was "produced in collaboration" with an external entity of some kind.

The Unusual Case of the Minister of Transportation

In contrast with third sector organizations, which are often not very forthcoming with information about their financial engagements, all the government entities we contacted while working on this article provided data about the costs of purchasing content in Keshet programming. Of the reviewed entities, based on the information they provided, the most lucrative client of Keshet's apporved promotional content department is the Ministry of Transportation.

The MOT, headed by the Minister Israel Katz since 2009, gave the franchisee a total of 3 million NIS as part of its Road Safety campaign. In exchange for the substantial sums, the MOT was given an extensive platform on the shows "People", "Keshet's Morning" and "Live at Night", as well as a 45 minute documentary that aired on primetime. Like most engagements of this kind, the agreement also included the setting up of a designated channel on Keshet's internet website, Mako.

The case of Minister Katz is unusual not only because of the high sums involved, but also because of the composition of the campaign's content. In contrast with campaigns of other government offices, the content that the MOT had purchased from Keshet included at least three interviews with the minister, as well as a personal column published in his name on Mako. Minister Katz's campaign demonstrates how a government venture aimed at promoting a public message can simultaneously serve to promote the image of a political figure.

It is exactly for cases of this kind that the government established rules prohibiting the political use of government publicity funds. According to the directive of the Accountant General in the Ministry of Finances and the Attorney General, the ministries are not allowed to include in their publicity campaigns "a visual representation or a personal ad of a civil servant, minister, or any other employee of the ministry", barring "exceptional cases". In practice, quite a few of these "collaborations" star ministers or the ministry's employees.

The interviews with Minister Katz, which addressed only the content of the campaign and did not challenge the minister, demonstrate how a senior politician managed to successfully funnel funds allocated for the promotion of the ministry agenda into personal screen time. In this case, as well as other instances, there was a special emphasis on the nature of the screen time: programming based on a magazine, journalistic format, which is conducive to blurring the nature of the content. It looks like an interview, it sounds like an interview, it is even called an interview – but in reality, it is an array of government messages aired as part of a commercial agreement (the Ministry of Transportation said in response that the minister was not involved in the campaign but the engagement received "all the necessary permits, including legal consultation").

Religious Marketing

Another journalistic format used for such engagements is the field segment, which is in fact an advertorial for the funding entity. Last July, for instance, the show "People" featured advertising of this kind for the Alon settlement Ein Prat Midrasha. "Tonight we continue our coverage of Israelis who chose to reconnect to Judaism", announced the presenter Dror Globerman in the intro to a "field segment" in which the show's correspondent visited the Midrasha, talked with its management, and highlighted the merits of the institution.

While Globerman did point out to the viewers that the segment was created "in collaboration" with the association Shearim, which operates the Midrasha (and which also purchased commercial content on Ynet website), like in all the other cases mentioned in this article, the viewers were not informed that "in collaboration" in fact means "we were paid by", and that the funding entity was involved in shaping the content. As elaborated in the letter written by Keshet asking The Second Authority to authorize the engagement, the association paid the franchisee in order to "raise awareness of the importance of the connection between religious and secular populations to the unity of the Israeli society".

Another entity that funded pseudo-editorial advertorials is the Ministry of Welfare while it was headed by Minister Meir Cohen. In 2014 Keshet submitted to The Second Authority a request for a permit to receive funds in exchange for embedding messages aimed at "encouraging families to become foster families" in the magazine show "People". Like in the case of the engagement with Shearim Association, here too Keshet refused to disclose the sums paid for the acquisition of content. The Ministry of Welfare told The Seventh Eye that the agreement was for the sum of 1.2 million NIS.

Other government entities that signed contracts with Keshet for the acquisition of pseudo-journalistic coverage are the Ministry of Education (2.1 million NIS), the Ministry of Science (1.4 million NIS), the Ministry of Tourism (2 million NIS), the Israel Nature and Park Authority (1.05 million NIS), Israel National Road Safety Authority (255 thousand NIS), and the Ministry of Finance (according to the Ministry's spokesperson, an agreement to purchase "promotional content" on financial education was canceled due to "Protective Edge" operation. The ministry paid Keshet approx. 44 thousand NIS in damages).

Experts for a Fee

In addition to government funds, Keshet also receives funds from third sector organizations that wish to utilize its programming as a platform for advertising their activity and world view. One of the organizations that stand out in this context is the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a philanthropic organization funded by donations from North American Israel-supporting Christians. In recent years, the foundation, headed by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, was involved in several marketing content and sponsorship initiatives in different media outlets, including Yediot Aharonoth and Ynet, Channel 10, and the Sports channel.

Channel 2 franchisees have also been enjoying the millions in the organization's media budgets: The Seventh Eye's investigation uncovered that over a year ago the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews funded "A Salute to the IDF" broadcast, aired on primetime in one of the franchisee Reshet programming days. The documents of The Second Authority reveal that the foundation, which in the past paid one million NIS for "sponsoring" Keshet's "A Star is Born", also paid to have its messages embedded in different current affairs programs.

We can glean Keshet's justification for funded content from a request the franchisee had made to The Second Authority last year. The agreement, defined as a "lateral programs collaboration" between Keshet and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jew, included funded segments on different associations on the programs "Almost Shabbat" and "What a Country" (a list featuring some of the associations for which airtime was purchased appears in Keshet's letter).

"Social solidarity is one of the foremost tenets of Jewish Israeli culture", wrote Sivan Carmon, head of Keshet's regulation department at the time. Therefore, she explained, "Keshet wishes to collaborate with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and embark on an extensive project aimed at exposing the viewers to the different help and volunteering enterprises. In this framework, Keshet will produce a series of segments showcasing the different volunteering project, interviews with volunteers, and how they help the different populations".

Altruistic arguments of this kind, which could merit a valid coverage that was not bought with money, reoccur in requests to approve the engagements with other NGOs. The engagement with Elem, aimed at funding content in the programs "People", "People at Night" and "Keshet's Morning", for instance, was rationalized as a desire to promote "education for tolerance", "war on racism and discrimination" and "universal values of human dignity, equality, justice, tolerance, compassion, identity and belonging".

In the request to approve the engagement with Leket Israel for funding content on the programs "People", "Keshet's Morning" and "Live at Night", Keshet argued before The Second Authority that the funding agreement was aimed at "raising awareness of the importance of saving food surplus" and "sensible and smart consumption" that will prevent food waste. An engagement with the Israel Democratic Institute, which paid for interviews with its representatives on the same three programs, was described as a part of the fight against the decline in voter turnout in the national elections.

Two other organizations mentioned in Keshet's documents are the Schusterman Foundation and Steinhardt Foundation, which funded programming on the subject of The Israel Program for Excellence in English (Talma) – a non-governmental venture incorporated in the project "Summer Vacation Schools" of the former Minister Piron (a source in the Ministry of Education told The Seventh Eye that the ministry was not involved in the transaction between Talma and Keshet). The funds, in this case, were used to purchase items dubbed "reports/segments" which featured "the program's directors, representatives of foundations that funded the activity, and the teachers who participated in it", which were aired on the programs "People" and "Live at Night".

Like in the transactions that Keshet had signed with government offices, the transactions with NGOs also demonstrate the advertiser's predilection for magazine shows – a format through which they purchase advertising presented as journalistic coverage. The fact that they had to pay for the exposure attests to the fact that their merchandise was deemed not important or interesting enough to make it to the screen on its own merit. It is safe to assume that if someone at Keshet was genuinely interested in Minister Israel Katz's thoughts on Road Safety, the franchisee would have found a way to interview him even without getting paid. It is also safe to assume that such an interview would have been far less easy and accommodating towards the minister.

A Soft and Cuddly Outlet

In a conversation with The Seventh Eye, a source working in the content and production field claimed that the suggestions to embed funded content in the programs usually come from Keshet and not from the programs staff, which on some occasions are employed by external production companies that have long term agreements with the franchisee.

Once the engagement with the funding party is approved, the editorial staff shapes the messages of the campaign to fit in with the format of the program, subject to the instructions of the franchisee regulation department. The payment is usually transferred directly to Keshet, which is the party signed on the contracts with the advertisers.

Despite a certain level of freedom given to the professional staff, upon viewing the content it becomes evident that there is a clear line that is usually not crossed: a minister, a government official, and a representative of an NGO that paid for the coverage usually will not be pressed to address issues that digress from the agreed upon topic, and no hard questions will be asked.

Despite the deceptive pseudo-journalistic framing, the "collaborations" allow the interests heavy subject of coverage a sterile media platform, a television bubble in which they will not be required to address issues that could make them uncomfortable, or potentially questionable aspects of the initiatives whose promotion was paid for.

Not only does the sterilization process that magazine shows underwent impair the quality of the shows and their editorial freedom, it also places the staff in a conflict of interest: a program that broadcasted funded reports and interviews will find it particularly hard to cover the funding party critically and without prejudice when it appears in the headlines in other contexts.

The constant search for new clients may also have an adverse influence on the programming, and drive the program's staff to position them as a soft and cuddly platform, where an advertorial segment will not seem out of place, and sponsored questions will come naturally to the interviewer, gliding their to the attuned ears of the person who paid in order to answer them.

Keshet's CEO: I am not the one you should be speaking to

Kehset refused to address the transactions described in this article individually. Roee Berger from the company's Spokesperson and PR Department has said in response that "Keshet complies with the rules of The Second Authority, which permits collaborations with government offices and NGOs". Keshet's CEO Avi Nir also chose not to address the transactions and the phenomenon that they portray. "I am really really not the person you should be speaking to about this," he said in a telephone conversation with The Seventh Eye.

This Article was first published on The Seventh Eye. English translation by Maya Shimony. Read it in Hebrew here