Imagine a TV channel that specializes in football promises its audience to exclusively broadcast a football match whose result is already known. What makes that coverage distinguished?

Imagine a TV channel that specializes in football promises its audience to exclusively broadcast a football match whose result is already known. What makes that coverage distinguished?

Apply the same concept to the coverage on public as well as private Egyptian channels and newspapers about the new Egyptian Constitution polls on January 14 and 15. You’ll get the same results. Covering a football match depends on numerous shooting angles and on the details displayed on the screen. That applies to the coverage of TV channels and newspapers about the referendum and result indicators— constant motion yet still missing any heat.

Absence of contest

Over 96% of voters said yes to the new Constitution. The remaining percentage was distributed among those who said no and those who abstained. There was no real contest in the street, no electoral violations and no influence practiced on voters. Therefore channels had nothing but to affirm that voters’ turnout, exceeding the poll on the Constitution of the now toppled Muslim Brotherhood.

Cameras, shooting angles, reporters and guests all have affirmed that what is going on is not a choice between yes or no, but rather a message from the Egyptian people through which they rejected terrorism, directed a hard blow to the Muslim Brothers, supported the road map and mandatedthe army’s Chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to run for presidency.

Egyptian newspapers followed in the same steps. The main headline of the state newspaper al-Ahram on the morning of the referendum read ‘People Say their word today and tomorrow’. The private newspaper al-Masry al-Youm’s headline was ‘It is your day Egyptians and it stated that expatriates provided the good tidings as over 90% of their votes said ‘Yes’.

The ‘yes’ revolution

On Wednesday morning, the second day of the referendum, private newspaper al-Youm al-Sabea described the first day as ‘Yes Revolution’. With the initial indicators of the poll results showing up Wednesday evening after closure, the evening newspapers on Thursday described it a ‘historic accomplishment where over 95% said yes to the Constitution’ read the main headline of the public newspaper al-Ahram’s evening edition. For those affiliated to the  January 25 revolution, the only thing that is linked to history in the poll results was the return of the percentages that exceed ninety per cent, which people have been accustomed to in referendums duing the days of Jamal Abdul Nasser.

Rude campaigns

When Egyptian media outlets felt their mission was successfully accomplished— i.e. crowding people in front of polling centers and getting a historic ‘yes’ percentage confirming people’s unity— TV channels started to fill-in the gaps by justifying absence of the youth from the poll, the youth who supposedly have given these channels the absolute freedom after January revolution. They were absent though most of them supported the new Constitution as a result of the rude campaigns to say ‘yes’ which accused those rejecting the Constitution with affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Lies on air

Not only did they pretend to seriously cover a political event that lacks heat and competition, some have exploited the results to convey certain messages. Among those was Maryam Ameen, anchor of radio program ‘So It Is’.

Ameen said to her audience on January 16 that she is happy that she voted ‘yes’ for the first time and the result was as expected while previously it had never happened, hinting to clamor about falsifying presidential elections in favor of Muhammad Morsi. Maryam Ameen wanted to convince her audience that all the previous results were questionable. The anchor who is seen as part of the official Egyptian television did not settle for that as she also saluted Egyptians abroad for the heavy turnout where all the rolls were full, she said. The information is false since number of voters abroad was a little over 100,000 out of the 700,000 officially registered voters, but Ameen knows that no one will come on air to oppose her.

Lost battle

On the other hand, Aljazeera Channel, the only media voice in the Arab World that supports the Muslim Brotherhood, has not learned its lesson and refused admitting the defeat according to the turnout (39% of the registered citizens went to poll centers). Aljazeera broadcasted statements and statistics of Muslim Brotherhood’s sources, questioning the turnout percentage, showing the empty centers instead of the crowded ones and accused the regime of falsification. Aljazeera seemed determined to continue a lost battle without a goal, only because there is no way back.

First place

Egyptian channels have also searched for a fake victory, a distinction in shooting angles and numbers of cameras.  Each channel issued a press statement saying some party called it the best in referendum coverage even prior to the official announcement of results. The strangest example was with CBC extra, affiliated to CBC network. The channel was launched only a week ago, but ranked first according to a survey by ‘Nabd el-Watan. Newspapers published the news quoting the media center of CBC Network without even asking what this establishment was in the first place.

According to Alexa website, specialized in websites ranking worldwide, nabdelwatan.net is ranked 9,836 in Egypt and ranked 1,717,000 at the world level. When you click on the‘Who we are’link, you will find no information about the establishment. The latest survey it has made shows that ‘Star Academy’ is the most popular entertainment program, taking into consideration that the program was exclusively broadcasted on CBCs network.