- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Ilana Dayan
Ilana Dayan
Anchor of “Uvda” (“Fact”) on Israel’s Channel 2
Spring 2016 Visiting Pritzker Fellow
Seminar Series: “Covering Israel: Free Speech, Journalism & a Country in Conflict”
Biography
Ilana Dayan has anchored the weekly investigative-news program “Uvda” (“Fact”) on Israel’s Channel 2 since 1993. She also teaches free speech courses at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law and has hosted a weekly current affairs program on IDF Radio since 1997.
Dayan began her television career as the first-ever female news anchor for the daily TV interview program, “New Evening,” on Israeli Television from 1987 to 1990. She also wrote for the Yediot Aharonot newspaper from 1990 to 1993. She began her journalism career working as a radio correspondent for IDF Radio in 1982. There, she also served as a foreign news editor, political correspondent and parliamentary correspondent. Additionally, on IDF Radio, she served as lead anchor of “Good Morning Israel,” as well as host of an interview program, “Daily Meeting,” and the weekly news magazine, “On Air.”
Fluent in Hebrew, English and Spanish, Dayan holds a LL.M. and J.S.D. (Doctorate in legal studies) from Yale Law School, and holds an LL.B. from Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law. Dayan also attended the New York University School of Journalism (special summer program for young reporters), and in 1990 was granted a Fulbright Fellowship. A member of the Israeli Bar Association, Dayan has grappled with issues of free speech both as a lawyer and as a reporter.
In 2009, Dayan won a special award for best reporting and journalistic integrity from the Movement for Quality of Government in Israel, and won twice, with "Uvda," the best current affairs program award from the Israeli Film and Television Academy. In 2005, she was awarded the "Ometz" Movement for Better Government and Social Justice Investigative Journalism Award. Her TV reports won five special awards in The New York Festival for World's Best TV & Films (2013, 2014). In 2015 Ms. Dayan was awarded the Sokolov prize for outstanding broadcast journalism.
Dayan was born in Argentina and moved to Israel with her family when she was six years old. She lives in Shoresh, a small community near Jerusalem, and is married to Harel and mother of Yaeli, Zohar and Gonen.
Seminars
“Covering Israel: Free Speech, Journalism & a Country in Conflict”
In a two-seminar series, top Israeli journalist Ilana Dayan will explore the tensions between freedom of speech and national security in Israel, as well as the friction between free speech and market forces in commercial television. Dayan, a lawyer who teaches free speech courses at Tel Aviv University, also will explore the dilemmas of a journalist in a country in perpetual conflict. Her sessions will feature clips from her TV and documentary work, including her 2012 documentary about the killing of Osama Bin Laden in which Dayan traveled undercover to Pakistan.
The state of Israel was only five years old when the Supreme Court published, by many accounts, its most important decision. It struck down a ministerial decision (backed by statute) to close a newspaper. It did so based on the notion that Israel, although lacking a written constitution, was a “freedom-aspiring nation,” thus committed to freedom of speech. Constant conflict between security needs and the country’s “liberal DNA” has been a part of Israel ever since. Ilana Dayan, a journalist who studied law and teaches free speech, will take students through the highs and lows of Israel’s struggle to maintain itself and its liberal democracy. We will explore the stories that generated the fiercest struggles, the way they emerged from the shadows, the personal dilemmas of a patriotic reporter, as well as reflections on censorship and self-censorship.
Has television news diminished public discourse? Can commercial television divorce money-making concerns? Is it even made for impartial reporting? Case law on those issues is ample but often detached from the day-to-day reality of honest journalists who try to bring the truth to a screen owned by big corporations. This seminar will shift between theory and practice, featuring real-life examples of the dramatic clash between journalism, television and money.