Vardi, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80, was one of the leading lights of Israeli journalism of his generation.
By GREER FAY CASHMANCOPIES OF ‘Israel Hayom’ and ‘Yediot Aharonot’ are displayed in Ashkelon l(photo credit: REUTERS)
Moshe Vardi, the former editor-in-chief of Yediot Aharonot, was laid buried on Thursday at the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv. Vardi, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80, was one of the leading lights of Israeli journalism of his generation.He joined Yediot Aharonot in 1962 and was appointed editor-in-chief in 1989, after Dov Yudkowsky, who had been editor-in-chief for three years, decided to retire. Following his retirement, Yudkowsky joined Maariv, a move that did not sit well with the paper’s rivals at Yediot. There was an obsessive interest in what Yudkowsky was doing and with whom he was talking, which led to Vardi hiring private detectives to listen in to his phone calls and inform him of what was said.In 1996, after being charged with wire tapping, Vardi no choice but to resign. Although convicted for listening in to the calls, Vardi received a slap-on-the-wrist punishment – a suspended sentence of two months, plus a small fine.Vardi returned to Yediot in 1999 and worked there until 2004, when he reached retirement age.In the early years of Vardi’s stewardship the first time around, he hired a lot of bright young talents, most of whom were future media stars, but over the course of time he lost his drive and sense of objectivity, and he was accused of firing people because of their political views and of censoring stories for political reasons. Vardi denied these allegations but his reputation was sullied.A second-generation journalist, he was also a second-generation editor at Yediot. His father, Herzl Rosenblum, worked as editor of Yediot for more than 30 years.