Upstart Israeli News Channel i24 Takes Aim at CNN, the BBC—and Al Jazeera

Executives say they’re reaching 350 million viewers worldwide, and none of them in Hebrew

By Debra Kamin for Tablet Magazine

The headquarters of i24news, Israel’s first international news channel, is still unfinished. Outside, the glass building in Tel Aviv’s newly redeveloped Jaffa port sparkles, but inside the cavernous blue-lit newsroom, where broadcasts launched in mid-July, wires and beams are still exposed. But the ongoing construction doesn’t seem to bother the 150 journalists working around the clock to produce simultaneous newscasts in English, French, and Arabic.

It’s a mix that, by leaving out Hebrew, immediately signals i24’s ambition to speak to viewers beyond Israel’s borders. While English and French were obvious choices, the network’s founders say the decision to broadcast in Arabic was taken consciously to build an audience in parts of the world most hostile to Israel. “People will watch us because they hate us, and they will watch us through curiosity,” said Frank Melloul, the network’s Swiss-born 39-year-old CEO, who says he believes he can eventually compete with CNN, the BBC, and Al Jazeera for viewers. “They will see how we cover the 70 percent of international news, and if they can trust that, then they will also trust how we cover Israeli news.”

The goal, Melloul says, is not so much to promote Israel’s interests, but to shift the media narrative by adding to the mix of stories available on television. “I want to change the story a bit,” Melloul said. Last week, when 26 prisoners were sent back to the West Bank and Gaza in the first stage of that release, the i24 website carried a detailed list of their exact names and crimes, as well as the names of their victims, many of whom were murdered civilians. “When we are talking about an incursion in Gaza, all channels start broadcasting when the IDF is going into Gaza,” Melloul said. “Nobody starts broadcasting when Israel is under attack and getting rockets. There is always a fact before an invasion in Gaza.”

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