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By
Charles
Levinson, TBS Contributing Editor
At
an August press conference early on in Egypt’s landmark
race for the presidency, Mohammad Kamal, the mastermind behind
the smoothly crafted reelection campaign of President Hosni
Mubarak, stood before a skeptical international press corps.
He had not come to sell the world on his candidate. There was
no need for that. Victory for the 77-year-old, four-term incumbent
was assured.
Rather,
the smooth-talking, meticulously dressed Kamal set out to convince
Egypt and the world that a fundamental change was afoot, and
that after 25 years of authoritarian rule, his president had
begun an unprecedented democratic transition. In the months
leading up to the campaign, experts and opposition leaders had
warned repeatedly that free democratic elections would be impossible
as long as the state-controlled media, the primary source of
information for most Egyptians, behaved as it had for the past
half century, fawning over the president, while ignoring the
opposition.
And thus,
to bolster his claim, Kamal pointed to the state media and specifically
to state television. “This campaign is taking place in
an entirely new political environment in Egypt,” Kamal
said with the straight-faced earnestness of a lecturing professor.
“Every candidate has equal access to the media. The television
is giving equal air time to each candidate.”
The three-week-long
presidential campaign in Egypt saw many firsts. But to longtime
observers of Egyptian politics, the most unexpected was the
makeover inside Maspiro, the 25-storey-tall government
television building modeled after the Maison de Radio France
in Paris. For 19 days, the government’s news producers
plotted their campaign coverage with a stopwatch, carefully
doling out equal air time to each of the 10 candidates. Opposition
rallies were broadcast nightly on Egypt’s leading news
networks, anchors explained candidates’ platforms to viewers,
and even the most anti-regime presidential hopefuls appeared
on state TV talk shows.
The Cairo
Institute for Human Rights, which conducted the most thorough
study of media coverage of the elections, declared "a considerable
improvement in the performance of Egyptian mass media."
The opposition Wafd Party publicly congratulated state television,
and the party's vice president, Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, proclaimed
state television "probably the best media of them all."
After the elections, Ahmed Selim, office director for Information
Minister Anas al-Fiqi, declared the era of "free, transparent
and independent Egyptian media."
Same Old Story
It is, of
course, a ridiculous claim. The presidential election saw few
substantive changes to the state-media monopoly, neither on
state TV, nor in the government newspapers. The cosmetic changes
referred to above were just that—cosmetic. It may have
a slick new appearance and some of the trappings of balanced
journalism, but the state media behemoth still is serving the
same master, and that master is neither fair nor impartial.
There were
no institutional or systemic changes to insure that state media
would operate independently of the ruling party, and would not
be susceptible to political pressure. The changes that did occur
at state TV during the presidential elections were a result
of a political decision that the ruling National Democratic
Party’s interests—foremost among them to show the
world that Egypt is democratizing—would be best served
by a modicum of impartiality in the state media.
What changed with the 2005 presidential campaign was the level
of sophistication of the government’s message crafters.
The young, Western-educated coterie riding the ascendant coattails
of presidential dauphin Gamal Mubarak know that the propaganda
spewed forth by their fathers’ generation can never compete
in the 21st century. Instead of continuing a virtual ban of
the opposition on state TV, which would have triggered endless
ridicule and served little purpose in the information age of
Internet and satellite television, state TV gave each candidate
a fair shake quantitatively, though not qualitatively.
State media’s
failure to do what it claimed to set out to do (and was required
by law to do)—to cover the presidential campaign fairly—was
most evident in the coverage of Mubarak’s chief rival,
the Al Ghad (Tomorrow) Party’s Ayman Nour, who ultimately
would place a distant second in the voting. Nour’s defiant
anti-regime posturing and his calls for a liberal, secular democracy
have won him supporters both at home and in Washington. And
that has made him nothing but enemies inside the Mubarak regime.
Covering Nour
The Nour
camp’s problems with state TV were evident from the first
day of campaigning and would continue right through Election
Day. On the campaign’s opening night, Nour and Mubarak
gave near simultaneous kickoff speeches on opposite sides of
town. The state news channels dutifully covered and aired equal-length
clips from each event, about 30 minutes for each candidate.
Nightly news viewers saw Mubarak speaking to a crowd of thousands,
promising to create new jobs, battle corruption and continue
the process of democratization. They then saw close-up video
of a frustrated Nour wiping sweat from his brow and tapping
the microphone, repeating over and over, “Is this on?
Is this working? The microphone isn’t working. Can someone
pass me some tissues please?”
Though that
first night was perhaps the most egregious example of selective
editing, the Nour campaign would continue to make similar complaints
throughout the race. Gemila Ismael, Nour’s wife and campaign
manager, says she went to al-Fiqi, the Minister of Information,
to complain about the news coverage. Ismael says that al-Fiqi
asked her, “Did Ayman Nour say this, or not?” She
responded, “Yes, but he said other things as well.”
“Well, we have the right to air it then,” he responded
curtly, according to her account. Ahmed Selim, the office director
for al-Fiqi, says the Ghad Party was repeatedly invited to have
a representative present in the Information Ministry, but refused.
Meanwhile, the Mubarak campaign, one staffer confided, was allowed
to choose and edit their footage before it aired on state TV.
Wherever
the truth is, the incident highlights what is lacking in the
Egyptian state media: serious journalists who take the ethics
of the profession seriously. A news director trying to the best
of his abilities to be fair and balanced does not air 10 minutes
of a candidate struggling to get the microphone to work. It
isn’t necessary to have a candidate representative present
to demand that the candidate’s campaign speech be aired
instead of the technical fumbling that preceded it.
The heads
of news at state TV and the editors of state newspapers are
government loyalists first, journalists second. Hala Hashish,
the head of Nile News the government’s 24-hour news channel,
is a powerful media boss inside the Ministry of Information
and answers directly to the minister. She is outspoken, candid
and likable, but there is no mistaking which side she’s
on. “We didn’t make Ayman Nour look silly,”
she scoffs. “He did that to himself.”
When Hashish
defends the government she says “we” instead of
“them”: “The opposition came on TV and said
all these things about the government, and people wondered how
we could tolerate this, but the motto of the whole government
now is change,” She sees the decision to open state TV
to the opposition as a magnanimous gesture, rather than a journalistic
duty. “What other government in the world would have opened
their arms and welcomed everyone to come and criticize the government
on its own TV stations?” she asks.
Government
newspapers were far worse than state TV and were “highly
biased to President Mubarak,” according to the Cairo Institute
for Human Rights’ (CIHR) report. The CIHR report found
that between August 17 and August 23, Al Ahram devoted
57 percent of its coverage, overwhelmingly positive, to Mubarak
as the presidential candidate and 14 percent to Mubarak as the
president. Only 6 percent went to Ayman Nour, while 10 percent
went to the Wafd Party candidate Noman Gomaa. Al Gomhurriya
and Al Akhbar were even more heavily weighted in favor
of Mubarak.
The independent
daily Al Masry Al Youm also conducted a survey of the
three main government papers, Al Akhbar, Al Gomhuriya,
and Al Ahram, on August 22. The study found that 13,878
words were devoted to Mubarak, while 3,000 words were devoted
to all the other candidates combined. As Sami al Sherif, a media
professor at Cairo University observed, state newspapers “seemed
as if they were NDP campaign flyers.”
The Independents
Since President Mubarak last appealed to voters for support,
in a yes-or-no referendum in 1999, the independent and privately
owned media in Egypt have blossomed. They played a prominent
role in the 2005 presidential elections. In many ways, though,
the privately owned print media appeared to have a degree of
independence unattainable on privately owned Egyptian satellite
stations like Dream.
Faced with
time limits on state television, the Mubarak campaign turned
to Dream TV, the four-year-old Egyptian satellite channel owned
by business tycoon Ahmed Bahgat. In a two-hour meeting between
Dream president Amr Khafagy and the NDP’s Ahmed Ezz, the
two worked out the details of a simple deal: Dream would broadcast
Mubarak’s campaign rallies, but would have the exclusive
rights, and the Mubarak coverage would not have any affect on
the channel’s coverage of other candidates. The deal allowed
the Mubarak campaign to sidestep the troublesome requirements
demanding equal time for all candidates on state owned TV, and
guaranteed them coverage on one of the most-watched channels
in Egypt (Khafagy says that only state TV’s Channel 1
has more viewers). Dream also benefited from the arrangement.
Demand for advertising during Mubarak’s opening night
campaign speech, for example, was nearly three times the average
for that time slot, according to Khafagy.
But it was
an unusual agreement, one that would be hard to swallow in most
Western democracies, where, ideally, campaigns get access to
media based on independent media outlets’ judgments about
what is and what is not newsworthy. The decision has tarnished
Dream’s image as an independent station. “Dream
is a sellout, an NDP stronghold,” says Wafd vice president
Abdel Nour.
Dream has
had rocky relations with Mubarak's two principal challengers.
The Wafd Party newspaper led the campaign to shut the station
down in 2002 after the channel's vice president and star presenter
Hala Sarhan discussed masturbation and other sensitive topics
on her show. Ayman Nour had his own show on Dream in 2002, but
was fired when Dream management felt he was exploiting the program
to serve his political interests.
The CIHR
report praised Dream for allocating more broadcast hours to
covering electoral campaigns than any other station, but claimed
that Mubarak took the lion's share of the coverage, 58 percent,
versus 41 percent for other candidates. Khafagy disputes the
CIHR numbers, Dream's independence was further smeared because
the company which controls the advertising rights on Dream refused
to sell advertising to any opposition candidates. That advertising
agency, Egyptian Arab Media, is owned by Ahab Talaat, whose
business partner is NDP powerbroker Safwat Al Sherif's son.
Talaat bought the advertising rights on Dream just months before
the presidential campaign began. Since the campaign, Talaat
has become the focus of intense media scrutiny. The Wafd newspaper
has attacked him, alleging that he has monopolized advertising
on Egyptian television and that, thanks to his close relationship
with Al Sherif, he has come to wield extraordinary influence
inside the Information Ministry.
Khafagy
maintains that advertising on Dream is totally out of his hands,
and has zero affect on programming. In Dream's defense, the
station has continued to air critical programs, such as Fil
Momnua (In the Forbidden), a gritty and combative one-on-one
interview show hosted by Al Masry Al Youm columnist
Magdy Mahana. And the station's employees said they were not
pressured in any way during the campaign. "We spoke freely
about all the candidates, and about the election,” says
Eyad Dawoud, a presenter on Shababeek, a talk show
for youth. “We didn’t have to stick to praising
Mubarak and there weren’t any kind of restrictions.”
With the
station making backroom deals with the Mubarak campaign, however,
and the station's advertising in the hands of a businessman
with clear political allegiances to the ruling party, there
is, at the very least, the appearance of impropriety. The experience
with private satellite channels such as Dream, operating in
the shadow of authoritarian regimes, cannot replace a truly
independent media.
In the printed
media the results were mixed. The independent daily newspapers
Al Masry Al Youm and Nahdet Misr shone during
the presidential election campaign, and were singled out by
CIHR for their “excellent service both at the level of
information and analysis” and for providing campaign coverage
that was "unprecedented in over 50 years.” Al
Masry Al Youm scored the first ever interview with Mubarak
by an independent Egyptian newspaper, albeit under strict conditions
that allowed the campaign have editorial control over the text
of the interview before publication.
Elsewhere,
the independent press was less impressive. The financial daily
Al Alam Al Youm gave fawning reviews of Mubarak’s
economic proposals. Meanwhile, the paper’s executive editor,
Lamees al-Hadidi, was heading media relations for Mubarak’s
campaign.
The independent
yellow press, papers such as Al Mogiz, Al Islah, and
Al Sharooq, which many allege are mouthpieces for state
security, unleashed relentless attacks on Ayman Nour. He has
since filed over 40 libel lawsuits against such papers, according
to Ismail, though the prosecutor has yet to move on any of them.
Two months
after Egypt’s presidential vote, as parliamentary elections
got under way, the state media already had reverted to its old
ways. A preliminary report by CIHR claimed 95 percent of Al
Ahram had been devoted to the NDP in the run-up to the
parliamentary elections. And state TV was devoting up to 66
percent of air time to NDP candidates. Egypt’s first multi-candidate
presidential elections were meant to signal to the world a new
era of democratic change and a symbol of that change was meant
to be the state-run media. By providing fair and equal coverage
to the 10 presidential candidates, Egypt hoped to show the world
that it was committed to its democratic experiment. The state
may have tweaked the presentation of the message, but that message
is no more autonomous, independent, or fair than it was a year
ago.
Charles Levinson is a freelance journalist
who writes for The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco
Chronicle, USA Today, Dallas Morning News and The Guardian.
He is a TBS contributing editor and the former news editor of
Cairo magazine.
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