Sikkuy – The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, and The Seventh Eye, a media watchdog organization, recently released their index measuring representation of Arab Israeli citizens in Israeli media. The index is based on data on the number of Arab Israelis interviewed on TV and radio programs.

In 2019, Israel’s public broadcasting services were far better than the commercial stations in representation of Arab Israeli citizens. The two leading TV programs cited by the index last year were Rino Tzror’s daily current affairs program on Army Radio (Galei Tzahal) and Keren Neubach’s Kan Bet daily program on Israel Radio.

The Sikkuy-Seventh Eye Index chose Channel 11/Kan Public Broadcasting Corporation as the country’s best news station for the significant rise in Arab Israeli representation in general, and Arab Israeli women in particular, with a number of Arab experts called on to the station. For other programs, the rate of Arab Israeli representation was as low as zero.

The most outstanding development in 2019 was a dramatic increase in the number of Arab Israeli women being interviewed. In 2016, only 14% of Arab citizens interviewed on TV and radio stations were women, while last year, this proportion rose almost 50%, with 21% of all Arab interviewees. The percentage of Arab Israeli experts interviewed rose from 17% in 2016 to 22% in 2019.