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Hello Dear Readers,
Welcome again to our Weekly update of the situation in Israel.

Newsflash:

- My girlfriend has arrived from Norway and we spent the weekend in the old city of Jerusalem.

- The german ambassador visited our organization today and had a chat with the volunteers.

- Weather is ranging from 20 at daytime to 0 at night, clear sky.

What is more interesting is my meeting with Ulrich Sahm a Middle-East Correspondent for the Television Channel NTV.
We went to his house this Saturday. Somewhere hidden in the outskirts of Jerusalem. We get off the road, past the parking lot, down the long staircase and then enter his house. Ulrich greets us with the words: "Let me just grab a pullover". He runs off, returns a minute latter with a worn-out shirt and invites us to sit down in his studio. We follow him through the house and shortly after find ourselves in a 3 times 4 meter room, stuffed from ground to ceiling with equipment, monitors, cables and books. So here he works. Ulrich sits down in a somewhat comfortable chair. In the monitors behind him, Al Jazeera on one screen, joined hand in hand by BBC next to it. I ask him about his job, where his cameraman is living, where do they make the shoots? Is he using a satellite to transfer the pictures?
He looks at me smiling, pushes a button and a screen rolls down from the ceiling. On it is a picture of the old city of Jerusalem. He reveals a camera opposite to it.
"This is our strength, you know, very convenient. I get a call and I am on the air with my statement in 1 minute. Live from Jerusalem."
If he is ever going out into the real world and delivering actual footage from the scene? "No, you don't have to. We are using Reuters, like every other news channel."
At this point something in my naive mind collapsed, my clear idea scattered. Maybe I had an idea, that every news channel in the world has 50 camera teams in Israel, right on the spot, whenever there is something going on. No news channel can afford that. Only Reuters can. The images are then sorted by the camera team at the spot, who decide what is worse filming and what not. Streamed to Reuters office, they sort again, distributed to all the clients, (including our NTV), they select the best (the bloodiest, most hardcore) part and use this unique selection in their program. And while this footage is then aired on tv, all our correspondent has to do is comment, live, from the hotspot, in Jerusalem.
And switching the Television Station also doesn't work, cause they all work the same. Try the new Al Jazeera in English. Don't mind the BBC look, they got all the old guard reporters and news speakers from there.
Lets say thank you to Ulrich Sahm. He explained a lot to me. Now I need to get this thing out, else it will be a Tuesday blog and I hate Tuesdays even more then Mondays.