Minister of Education Gideon Saar announced Sunday that the Israel Prize in communications will go to Yaakov Achimeir, a veteran journalist at television’s Channel 1.

Saar accepted the recommendation of the Israel Prize committee charged with naming the winner of the prize for communications. The committee is headed by media expert, Prof. Eitan Gilboa and includes journalists Uri Elitzur, Ayala Hason and Shimon Shifer.

Achimeir is one of the only journalists in the parastatal Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) who is believed to have right-of-center views. He is a son of Aba Achimeir, an early leader of the Zionist right wing.

As a young man, he was a reporter for Herut for Youth. In the 60s, he was a reporter on the BBC’s London-based Hebrew broadcasting service. Since the 70s, he has held a variety of positions on TV Channel 1.

He hosts the “Ro’im Olam” weekly world news edition and occasionally presents the news on Voice of Israel radio. Both Voice of Israel and Channel 1 are parts of the IBA.

Achimeir received the Sokolov Prize for written and electronic journalism in 2005 and the Israel Media Watch prize in 2009.

Achimeir revealed last year that in 1981, he knew of Israel’s plans to attack the nuclear plant in Iraq weeks before it took place, but managed to keep silent about it.