The Israel press council: Review and suggestions for improvement

The aim of this essay is to review the work of the Israel Press Council. The essay considers the history of the Press Council, analysing the way it has developed, its work, and how it reached its current status. It is argued that the existing situation is far from satisfactory, and that the media should advance more elaborate mechanisms of self-control, empowering the Press Council with greater authority and equipping it with substantive ability to sanction. R. Cohen-Almagor, D. Phil. (Oxon., 1991); Senior Lecturer, Department of Communication, University of Haifa; Member, Israel Press Council (1997– ); Visiting Professor and the Fulbright-Yitzhak Rabin scholar for this year, UCLA School of Law (1999–2000); author of The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance (University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 1994), Speech, Media and Ethics (Macmillan, London, 2000) and editor of Basic Issues in Israeli Democracy (Sifriat Poalim, Tel Aviv, Hebrew, 1999), Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance: Essays in Honor and Memory of Yitzhak Rabin (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), Challenges to Democracy: Essays in Honour and Memory of Isaiah Berlin (Ashgate, London, 2000), and Medical Ethics at the Dawn of the 21st Century (New York Academy of Sciences, New York, 2000). Dr. Cohen-Almagor is now completing a book on The Right to Die in Dignity: An Argument in Ethics, Medicine, and Law.