The journalists’ organization in the letter: “Franco to justice”

“We watched in amazement, live, as Hapoel Tel Aviv’s basketball coach, Danny Franco, violently pushed and shoved the Sports Channel reporter, Noa Poplinger,” Anat Sargosti, press freedom officer at the Organization of Journalists and Journalists wrote, “The incident occurred while he was briefing the team during a timeout in the game It was an inappropriate and forceful act. You can’t get hung up on the fact that it was a tense moment in the game and that maybe the coach didn’t want the briefing he gave the players to be broadcast live.”

“It’s hard to avoid the thought that he might have been standing there,” wrote a man. , basketball fans. Families, children, women and men. Whereas the apology was only on his Twitter account, and therefore, naturally, far fewer people were exposed to it. It would have been more correct if he had used the live broadcast and apologized, and not waited for the end of the game and the end of the broadcast.”

Later, Sargosti called for punishment: “The league management and the basketball association should take a significant and disciplinary step so that such an incident does not happen again, so that coaches, players and others know how to appreciate journalistic work and its importance, and the fact that journalists serve the public interest. We, the organization of journalists and women journalists In Israel, the representative organization of the majority of those engaged in all journalistic professions in all media, institutional, independent and freelance. In addition to dealing with the working relationships of journalists, the organization is also equally important in the freedom of the press, in protecting the ability of journalists to do their work in the best possible way. The organization has zero tolerance for violence against journalists, and no tension, pressure or competitive event can justify violence that is used against a journalist who is doing his job. Not least, when it is done in front of tens of thousands of viewers during a live broadcast of a game.”