If a news item is published on an Egyptian website with mistakes, the chances are the same errors will be replicated – word for word, misplaced comma for misplaced comma – on every other news site covering a local story in Egypt. Regional correspondents have responded to the pressures of delivering time-sensitive material to demanding editors in Cairo by pooling their efforts in what is known as communal journalism. The editors often just publish the news without checking what their competitors are doing. The result is a streamline of unverified, essentially plagiarised news.
If a news item is published on an Egyptian website with mistakes, the chances are the same errors will be replicated – word for word, misplaced comma for misplaced comma – on every other news site covering a local story in Egypt. Regional correspondents have responded to the pressures of delivering time-sensitive material to demanding editors in Cairo by pooling their efforts in what is known as communal journalism. The editors often just publish the news without checking what their competitors are doing. The result is a streamline of unverified, essentially plagiarised news.
Many news reporters in governorates outside Cairo face extreme pressure to meet deadlines. They often have to travel for several hours to get live coverage of events and talk to first-hand sources. By the time they send their reports, often written inside their means of transport, to their respective websites, another piece of breaking news has taken their peg. As competition grows for readers, editors demand fast copy, regardless of the circumstances. Many sites are internally assessed according to the number of articles published, not the quality. There is huge competition among outlets to break a news story first, or at least not last.
Time to share
Journalists in far flung areas have responded by creating an informal information sharing system known as communal journalism. They use closed groups on Facebook and WhatsApp to communicate with each other and distribute work assignments in a spirit of cooperation to meet the demand from their Cairo-based outlets.
Coverage of events and developments are shouldered by the nearest correspondent to the scene of events, and his or her duties include communicating with residents, taking pictures, and preparing draft reports to be sent through the group. Another colleague with good writing skills edits the collected information and sends the final news report to the group. Each correspondent then sends it to their respective outlet.
“Crisis of news likeness”
Another coordination effort is done through the relationship maintained by each correspondent with sources. A reporter with strong ties to the Security Department circulates its media releases and communicates with sources for exclusive statements. In cases of emergency, the affected reporter hands over his or her account details to a colleague who in turn sends news reports to the former’s employer. All correspondents get one-day off each every week on a rotation basis.
While communal news has reduced the burden on burnt-out regional reporters, it has also created a dearth of verification in Egyptian journalism. The communal approach has created a crisis of news likeness and a loss of vision, and led to an almost standardized version of news websites.
The news format of most websites is now largely identical with the same paragraph sequence. Any error in a news report published on a website – be it the name of a village, a source reference or an illogical piece of news – the same error appears in all other competitive sites. This is true not only for the websites that copy news, but also for the websites that have correspondents who email news items or use other applicable systems used by the respective newspaper. Even punctuation marks and headlines often remain the same.
