At Netanyahu trial, former Walla editor describes ‘outside meddling’ in coverage
Yinon Magal says there were ‘political and economic pressures’ on the news site to remove unfavorable coverage, including of PM’s family and associates
The trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued on Tuesday at the Jerusalem District Court with the testimony of Yinon Magal, a Channel 14 journalist, ex-MK and former editor-in-chief of the Walla news website.
His testimony addressed the Bezeq-Walla case, also known as Case 4000, which focuses on allegations that Netanyahu, during a previous tenure as prime minister, authorized regulatory decisions that financially benefited Bezeq telecommunications giant shareholder Shaul Elovitch by hundreds of millions of shekels. In return, Netanyahu allegedly held sway over media coverage from Walla, also owned at the time by Elovitch.
Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in the case.
In court, Magal declared that “there was constant pressure” by politicians to change content, not just by Netanyahu.
Magal said that he had no “personal or friendly relationship with Netanyahu,” neither when he was chief editor at Walla nor today, but that he supports him for his political positions. Magal’s only meetings with the PM consisted of occasional chitchat in the corridors of the Knesset, he said.
In 2015 Magal had a short-lived stint as a lawmaker in former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party, but he quit the Knesset at the end of that year amid allegations of sexual misconduct for which he never faced charges.
In the courtroom, state prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh asked Magal about a 2022 fundraising campaign he launched to cover Netanyahu’s legal expenses. Magal confirmed that he managed to collect NIS 4 million ($1.1 million) as part of the crowdfunding effort.
The funds, however, remain frozen as they cannot be legally transferred to Netanyahu. A coalition bill that would have allowed public servants to keep money gifted to them to cover medical and legal fees — which critics said was designed specifically for Netanyahu’s benefit — was withdrawn in late March following pressure from both coalition members and the opposition.
Elaborating on the types of pressure exerted on Walla, Magal said there was “constant meddling” by politicians, for example demands to remove an unflattering picture of Sara Netanyahu, or an item on Yair Netanyahu dating a non-Jewish woman.
The requests came constantly, not just during election periods, he said. “From a journalistic point of view, the website was not managed seriously,” according to Magal. “The final decision on what to publish was always made by the company’s CEO, Ilan Yehoshua. He asked me to be cautious, not to surprise him, not to go head-on against Sara Netanyahu,” he said.
“Initially, Walla was very much against Netanyahu. The whole media system was hostile to him; it was run by people from the left. It was very hard to steer the ship away from that,” Magal said, contradicting to claims he had made in 2018 that the website was objective and not particularly hostile to the prime minister.
Asked by the prosecutor why he opposed outside meddling in favor of the premier if he was a Netanyahu supporter, Magal replied that the pressures exerted on the website were not only political, but also economic. “Netanyahu was part of the external meddling, and I opposed any type of external meddling, whether political or economic,” he said, adding that there were “screams and threats,” and that Walla’s CEO complained that “the lady,” i.e. Sara Netanyahu, was “driving him crazy.”
Magal said that he eventually left Walla and joined Bennett’s party due to the deteriorating situation at the news outlet.
Prosecutor Tirosh asked the court to perform a formal cross-examination of Magal on account of contradictions between his latest testimony and the statement he made to the police in 2018 when he was first questioned about the Bezeq-Walla affair. But the judges rejected her request, as it would have required the prosecution to provide evidence that Magal is a hostile witness.
Netanyahu’s trial began three years ago and, as things stand, the proceedings, including potential appeals, are seen as unlikely to end before 2028-2029. In late June, it was reported that the judges consider the bribery charge against the premier difficult to prove, and that they convened with state prosecutors and Netanyahu’s defense team to discuss the possibility of a plea bargain.
Netanyahu is also on trial for two additional counts of fraud and breach of trust in Case 1000, which concerns gifts he allegedly inappropriately received from billionaire benefactors, and Case 2000, in which he allegedly negotiated to obtain positive media coverage in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in exchange for curtailing its competitors.
He denies any wrongdoing in the cases against him and claims that the charges were fabricated in a witch hunt led by the police and state prosecution.
The Times of Israel Community.