Memory in journalism and the memory of journalism: Israeli journalists and the constructed legacy of Haolam Hazeh

The article looks at the role of journalists as collective memory agents via an investigation of the interplay between the stories journalists tell as professionals and the stories they tell about their profession. It does so through an exploration of the stories that Israeli journalists have narrated about the sensational and radical weekly Haolam Hazeh (in Hebrew: This World; 1937-1993) over time and the ways in which such stories reflect and shape the changing professional self-perceptions of the Israeli journalistic community. The article first looks into the dynamics through which Haolam Hazeh became the "functional transgressor" of Israeli journalism during the 1950s and 1960s. Next, it probes the complementing commemorative and noncommemorative components of Haolam Hazeh's current glorified memory, as a forefather of critical Israeli journalism. Correspondingly, the article traces the conditions and circumstances that facilitated this process. Finally, the article discusses the ways by which the inquiry of transformed journalistic reputations could be used as a framework for the exploration of the development of communal journalistic consciousness.