The Egyptian media is targeted by all parties: the government and the opposition, revolutionary forces and remnants of the former regime, media members and politicians, Muslim Brothers and their adversaries, salafists and secularists, average citizens and intellectuals. Everyone holds the media responsible for mistakes they make, for clamor raised by ill-advised statements. The fact is, however, that the Egyptian media is indeed in crisis—not just for these reasons, but also because it is still in a state of confusion.
The Egyptian media is targeted by all parties: the government and the opposition, revolutionary forces and remnants of the former regime, media members and politicians, Muslim Brothers and their adversaries, salafists and secularists, average citizens and intellectuals. Everyone holds the media responsible for mistakes they make, for clamor raised by ill-advised statements. The fact is, however, that the Egyptian media is indeed in crisis—not just for these reasons, but also because it is still in a state of confusion. It is perhaps the only sector that is almost untouched by the revolution, and is still run and managed by the state authoritarian laws and inflexible mentality it always has been.
This chaotic situation and the ensuing crisis may be attributed to our failure to give due attention to the call for media restructuring during the transitional period. It is a sector deeply infested with corruption, and has been one of the major tools for the production of repression and autocracy.
Solving the Egyptian media crisis is not unattainable. It is a process, a process of transition from autocracy to democracy and to the rule of institutions. In line with many documented experiences in the sphere of democratic change, and based on my own experience with the Egyptian media, I believe that to overcome this crisis, we must consider three points of action that will open the way for a substantive democratic transformation through restructuring the media. In the end, the media must be subject to the general public rather than to any political or financial authority.
The first point of action is to liberate the media by closing down the Radio and Television Union, the Supreme Council of Journalism, and the Ministry of Information, because these were the tools used by the executive authority to control the public’s minds. In their place, I recommend the formation of an independent information body whose primary mission is to oversee, rather than interfere in, the media’s ins and outs. For example, this body shall not be entitled to disapprove the issuance of a license, but may approach the judiciary should it discover that the applicant is not eligible to publish a newspaper or broadcast satellite channels.
In order for this body to be independent, the appointment of its members must not be made by a single authority, but by both the executive and legislative authorities, with one or more representatives of the judiciary. One of the prerequisites is that the candidate be qualified and experienced in the field and have no financial or political affiliation with media institutions. Furthermore, these institutions should be regulated by a law to prevent monopolies or control over more than one media outlet.
This body should supervise the national media, which must turn into an effective media outlet rather than serving as the mouthpiece of the regime, in accordance with specific mechanisms that will be discussed in the second point.
Contention over the implementation of the press charter and penalties and fines against newspapers must be handled by another body, which may be named National Media Self-Management Commission, a voluntary institution to which newspapers, electronic media outlets, and satellite stations may subscribe. The Commission’s members should draft an ethical charter and set up an ad hoc committee to oversee its implementation, impose sanctions on violators, and carry out mediation or negotiation processes to resolve disputes between affected parties and media institutions. These media self-regulation bodies function efficiently in most of the countries advanced in this field. There are numerous forms of such bodies, and Egyptian media workers may select those that best fit the Egyptian case.
Two requirements must be met: first, the body must incorporate elite media figures; representatives of newspaper publishers and civil society; organizations interested in freedom of the press, the media, and expression; and legal experts specializing in the field of media legislation. Second, certain codes of conduct endorsed by members of self-regulation bodies require that each media outlet have a so-called ombudsman whose duty is to check news items and ensure both proper reporting and a conscious effort to avoid abusing minorities or other social groups. We must begin to apply these high standards. There are media activists who are already designing media self-regulation projects in cooperation with UNESCO and the Professional Development Committee at the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate.
The second point of action is to liberalize the national audio-visual and printed media from state control by transferring its affiliation from the state to the above-mentioned independent media body. This affiliation must be strictly professional, where the body develops specific criteria for selecting the leaderships of the state media outlets, oversees the selection process, and designs scheduled accountability mechanisms for these leaderships. The economic and financial management must be achieved through the establishment of an independent holding company also reporting to the supervising body. National media must also be affiliated with this company, which, along with its subsidiaries, must operate in keeping with economic efficiency terms, and may shut down or merge incompetent media outlets after a sufficient transitional period.
An essential point should be noted in terms of the demands raised by the privatization of national media. These rightful demands have been initiated widely, and many states implemented them during the democratization stage. We have reservations regarding these demands for many reasons, the first of which is that most capitalist democratic countries have state-owned media that address the general public, rather than acting as the government’s mouthpiece, such as the BBC in Britain and similar institutions in France, Scandinavia, and in other areas of the world.
The second reason is that thousands of journalists and administrative staff work for these institutions, and it is unfair to hold them accountable for the consequences of their leaders’ corruption and the damage caused to their institutions. These large numbers of workers make the process of buying national media economically infeasible.
The third reason is that Egyptians need a meaningful media that serves their interests, has no affiliation with the state, and is uncontrolled by capital. It is no secret that a media owned by individuals has an agenda which is totally incompatible with the public interest, and serves only the interests of the capitalist classes allied with political power. Real national media can be a means of protecting the public from distortions, especially when the cultural, educational and economic circumstances are unsuitable for the growth of a substitute media like the one that protects people in the West from the media empires belonging to the capitalist institutions.
The third point of action is to develop and support local media, not only because of the need to accommodate thousands of young graduates from media or press colleges, but also because the crisis faced by traditional media all over the world suggests that a great part of the solution lies in such a point of action. The satellite channels and newspapers published in the capital pay attention to the issues of the capital only and ignore local issues; local media—websites, local newspapers, and television stations dedicated to specific regions, as well as local private radio stations that broadcast via the internet—must concentrate on the regions requiring national attention.
It should be mentioned in this regard that the whole world is witnessing a considerable decline in newspaper circulation, and the mainstream policy now is to replace hard copies with electronic copies. India, on the other hand, has survived this crisis; it is nearly the only country in the world in which newspaper circulation has increased. The majority of journalism industry experts believe this has occurred not because India has adapted to advancements in the media industry as represented by establishing sophisticated and multifunctional newsrooms, but because it has focused on local issues, whether through prioritizing them in their articles, or by activating distribution operations in remote villages. Such experiences must prompt us to search for innovative approaches to promote our media in general, and local media in particular, whether through supporting the media in remote regions, or ensuring that these regions have facilitated access to the media.
These three points complement each other, and we should understand that a partial solution to this crisis would be neither useful or meaningful. The solution must be far-reaching and well-integrated, which is a prerequisite for any democratic transformation. Democracy is indivisible, and media independence and liberalization are two basic elements of it.
