What does it mean to be a journalist if one loses the ability or even the desire to set forth questions and search for answers? It is a paradox to be a journalist when your political notions contaminate your professional identity, turning you into a propagandist tool influenced by a media identity crisis, which originated the moment media deserted its role as news reporter to becoming a defender of a certain cause.
What does it mean to be a journalist if one loses the ability or even the desire to set forth questions and search for answers? It is a paradox to be a journalist when your political notions contaminate your professional identity, turning you into a propagandist tool influenced by a media identity crisis, which originated the moment media deserted its role as news reporter to becoming a defender of a certain cause.
Media “struggling” methodology is closely linked to the political transitional process disorder, the difficulty of anticipating its changes and the severe accompanied divisions. This confusion between the personal and the professional communication has been strengthened by the growth of social networking websites, having a key role in reporting street developments and revealing what traditional media failed to uncover during these (Arab) revolutions and their aftermath. It is likely that the traditional media has adopted this method of expression where talk shows have become mere demonstrations of personal positions and feelings in an attempt to channel personal notions to guide the people to a certain “correct” political ideology.
Revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were accompanied by a dispute on the importance of liberating national media from the political authority, considering that it served as a propagandist tool for former regimes for a long time. This dispute aroused questions on the meaning of media professionalism, its applications and its role as a representative of the whole society. However, in the context of the complexity of the transitional processes, evidence proved disputes to be shallow, as they could not reach a well-established consensual concept of the role of media, beyond defending political camps. The traditional media was thus restored to its traditional role; a propagandist tool for certain politics.
The Egyptian experience has been the clearest pattern of this case, as a creeping wave has marked the way media dealt with the ousting of the Islamic Brotherhood president by the army. All media, private and public alike, with few exceptions, celebrated the change in a festive way, glorifying the role of the army and deliberately ignoring urgent questions, especially opposing viewpoints disappointed with this change.
Having the Islamic voice muted, the media stage has become a unilateral stage, summarizing the critical change in an army-praising discourse in an ingenuous way of expression similar to that of the talk show presenter, while singing the Egyptian national Anthem and waving the Egyptian flag; or that of the female presenter who congratulated the Egyptian people on their safety, affirming that Egypt has “restored its beauty” and that “Egyptians proved that only they have the sovereignty” in addition to many other similar examples.
Going beyond using expressions like the “Islamized”, “Traitors” and even “terrorists” in describing the Islamic Brotherhood’s supporters and directing provoking discourse against Syrian and Palestinian communities-supposing that they stand for President Morsi- this discourse has replaced the discourse of violence and defamation used by the Islamist channels, which often described media introducing itself as liberal as “disbelievers” and its figures as “attendants of bars” and launched defamation campaigns that reached media and political figures.
Additionally, reaction to the arbitrary closure of TV channels and arresting members of their staff has varied between compliment and justification. Editor in Chief of one newspaper called for a popular campaign for closing the office of Al Jazeera Channel in Egypt and dismissing its staff, charging the channel with alienation of Morsi during his term and during the events which ended in ousting him.
This strict unilateralism of all official Egyptian media platforms has obscured its previous concerns about the deteriorated living standards, the independent performance of the media away from pressures and objecting exclusive approaches have turned talk shows into political clubs. It is as if our world has all of sudden become an ideal world that need not to ask questions, even within the context of developments with critical implications, like shooting protestors during their prayer, according to Morsi’s supporters, or investigating the claims that the army may have used excessive force against Morsi’s supporters while they were staging a sit-in.
The media stopped posing questions to be occupied with praising the calm life the country has restored and accusing critics of the current situation of being “Islamist” remnants trying to turn against the revolution and consequently deserving of such an end, thus adopting the same discourse and pretexts the media of former regimes used against them in the past. A weapon commonly used by former regimes against its critics, which is protecting “national security” has restored its position as the anthem of media and the pretext of justifying murder.
The language used by the talk show presenter on ON TV and the threats he leveled against the Syrian and Palestinian communities for their support of the “ousted” president were assaulting and his “apology” the next day reflected his arrogant position when he considered that the audience misunderstood his speech, which was of an educative nature and consequently described it as racist.
Hence, these are the media horns of the national chauvinism that reject co-existance with differing opinions, even if serious divisions with clear negative impacts threaten the society and till the wheel of the “slanging match” .
