Yair Lapid and the Media: Martin Sherman vs Dov Lipman

A media tiff has developed in the Jerusalem Post between two veteran, high-profile personalities: anti-Lapid Martin Sherman and pro-Lapid Dov Lipman. I am not going to delve into the specific arguments of either side. I am more interested in Lapid's handling of the media, a topic with which I have already dealt with in this blog and will deal with again. This topic is of great interest because the print media clout has declined and the digital media have risen to prominence. The rules have changed.

The following are the Sherman vs Lipman developments up to now.

On September 25, 2015, veteran opinion columnist Martin Sherman, authored an anti-Lapid article in the Jerusalem Post. One would have thought that it wouldn't have created much of a ripple, after all we are still so far away from even any talk of elections. Not so.

Anti-Sherman letters to the editor were received at the Jerusalem Post. With regard to these letters to the editor, the Jerusalem Post said the following:

The letters editor responds: Six letters directly referring to the September 25 column were received by press time on September 29. All were piercing, and all were negative. There was no indication of an organized letter-writing campaign, so it was clear that Martin Sherman had struck a nerve. To reflect this, four of the letters were chosen for publication. The two positive letters that arrived (this and the one above it) came solely in response to the negative letters. Please be assured that I view the letters section as the readers’ soapbox.

I bow to no pressure, political or otherwise, and try to present letters in a way that reflects the tone and balance of the material that arrives.

Furthermore, Sherman tells us that Lapid's office approached the Jerusalem Post and demanded a public disassociation from Sherman's article. Obviously, the JP could not and would not do that. They cannot produce a disclaimer for every opinion that annoys someone.
Finally, on October 2, two pro-Sherman letters to the editor appeared.
In that same issue was a follow-up article by Sherman (in response to the pro-Lapid letters), and on the same page, a rebuttal by Lipman, speaking for the Lapid camp, of the original Sherman article.
So what can we learn from all this.

1. Lapid is very conscious of his public image because he is trying to position himself as the front-runner in the campaign for Prime Minster in the next election. Anything anti-Lapid will be swiftly dealt with by flaming or an intensive campaign to swamp the anti-Lapid 'view'.
2. It is quite clear that some of the pro-Lapid letters were consciously generated by the Lapid camp itself; they have the telltale signs (here I differ with the JP Letters Editor). See the letters here. The formula is:
   Say something (against someone, preferably against Netanyahu or for Lapid) + say Lapid for Prime Minster or Lapid is a leader/has leadership qualities.
   We saw this in the responses to Lapid's Iceland letter (you can see this formula in action in the talk-backs on Lapid's site. By constantly repeating the theme 'Lapid for Prime Minister' (or some variation thereof), you penetrate the consciousness of the public and accustom it to the idea's plausibility. Remember, the 'media is the message'.
3. Lapid's anti-Sherman letters were partly successful. After all, it was unusual to print four anti-Sherman letters in one issue (even though the JP resisted printing a disclaimer). Indeed, the intensity of the pro-Lapid letters would certainly require the letters to be reflected in the letters column, as the JP editor states.
4.  Lapid's camp did succeed in getting Lipman's rebuttal in the newspaper as counterweight, in addition to the pro-Lapid letters to the editor.

In previous posts, I have addressed Lapid's media strategy. See my posts on Lipman and on Lapid's Reykjavik boycott letter. Also see Lapid and the Media: A Micro Case Study.

Stay tuned for more analysis of Lapid's media strategy.