Eurovision is a song contest, but it's also a news wire.
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Discussion
Eurovision is a song contest, but it's also a news wire.
@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @pedestrians1st
My perhaps overly subtle implication is that if the song contest drops Israel, the news wire is at serious risk of being shut down inside the country.
Russia was not removed for invading Ukraine. It was when they ejected the news gathering organisation that their involvement with the attached and related song contest ended.
Indeed, the song contest originated to show off how many satellite feeds and film crews the wire could run at one time. Its not just a weird side project of the newswire, but an important tool for promotion and access.
Obviously, Israel's participation in the contest is inappropriate, but the consequence of ejecting them is likely to be less international scrutiny. Journalists who had access to sources based on the associated glamour of the contest will lose that.
Israel's continued competition is untenable, but their ejection will also have negative consequences. It's a highly symbolic gesture to remove them but the reduced news access is not symbolic at all. This is legitimately a difficult tradeoff, but after their near-victory last year, it seems unavoidable.
Interesting angle. Do you really think Eurovision will allow for more scrutiny and news coverage of the situation in Palestine?
@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @pedestrians1st
I strongly suspect this, but have not investigated it.* It would also be difficult to definitely establish the motivation of somebody giving unauthorized background to a journo.
My other concern is that banning one "European" news wire makes it easier to ban other western media.
* I used to teach/research telematic music and used Eurovision as a case study because its relationship with Telstar is really interesting, so that's why the geography of the song contest is weird etc. My research area is music.