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Revision as of 10:27, 17 March 2015 by Arminden (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 650519086 by 79.178.37.65 (talk) POV, repeated anonymous edit, will report for blocking)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Daniel "Danny" Seaman (born 1961) is an Israeli media professional and former civil servant, mainly active in the fields of foreign service and public diplomacy ("hasbara").
Seaman is currently the Bureau Chief of "Voice of Israel" (http://www.voiceofisrael.com), an Israeli English-language news and talk internet radio station. "Voice of Israel" should not be mistaken for a branch of the official Israeli public domestic and international radio service, named "Kol Yisrael" (Hebrew for "Voice of Israel") and operated as a division of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. The station headed by Seaman and confusingly named "Voice of Israel" has a well- and narrowly-defined political agenda, as opposed to the official Israel Radio International station, known in English also as "Voice of Israel", which is presenting news and comments in a much more balanced, mainstream and representative way.
A veteran of the Israeli civil service, he retired in January 2014 after 31 years of duty. His last position was Deputy Director General for Information at the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs. In August 2013, Seaman was suspended from his government position as Director of Interactive Media because of offensive comments he made about Japanese commemorating the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Palestinians commemorating the Nakba. He formerly served as the Director of the Israel Government Press Office (GPO), part of the Office of the Prime Minister in Jerusalem responsible for the foreign media contingent in Israel.
Biography
Seaman was born to an American Jewish family on a US Air Force base in Germany. His family emigrated from the United States to Israel in 1971 and settled in the port city of Ashkelon.
He enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces serving in an elite paratroop unit in 1979 and is a veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War.
Seaman later joined the Israeli foreign service. Between 1983 and 1989, he served at the Israeli consulate in New York. While posted in New York, he completed a BA in Political Science, with honors, at the City University of New York's Hunter College.
Seaman served as an adviser and spokesperson to the Governments of six Prime Ministers: Yitzhak Shamir, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ehud Barak.
Seaman was directly responsible for coordinating the press coverage of several heads of states visits to Israel including US President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister (PM) Tony Blair, Canadian PM Jean Chrétien, Australian PM John Howard, Jordan's King Hussein and Chinese Chairman Jiang Zemin. He was a member of the Israeli press delegation to the Aqaba Peace Talks (see Road map for peace, Red Sea Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, June 4, 2003).
Seaman received the Israel Outstanding Civil Service Award in 2000 for coordinating the international press coverage of Pope John Paul II's visit to the Holy Land in March 2000. Seaman was appointed as head of the GPO in December 2000 and worked with thousands of foreign media who covered news events in Israel until 2010. He had worked for the GPO for several years and was the first civil servant promoted to Directorship of the GPO after a period of 30 years. During his tenure as GPO Director he implemented several measures which improved working conditions for foreign journalists in Israel.
He took a leave of absence from his post in November 2008 and announced his candidacy in the Likud party primaries for the 18th Knesset, but withdrew his candidacy.
Seaman lectures on Israeli and Middle-Eastern affairs and appeared on dozens of international news media outlets.
Media coverage
- Seaman is mentioned extensively in Stephanie Gutmann's book - "The Other War - Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy". Chapter 10 - "His Own Private Jihad" is specifically about his efforts to curb Palestinian influence on the media coverage.
- "Opposing the Digital Pogrom" - Jerusalem Post, March 4, 2010.
- Op-ed on media manipulation in the Middle East Israeli news site Y-Net.
- Upon conclusion of his term as GPO Director he gave an extensive interview to the editor of the Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=194079
- The Jerusalem Post, August 16, 2013 on Seaman's suspension, blogging faux-pas and future plans .