7 - 13 June 2001
Issue No.537
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 June 2001 Issue No.537 |
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Obituary
Khalil Youssef Sabat (1919-2001)
Khalil Sabat, who died at the age of 82 on Sunday, was no ordinary professor of journalism. He belonged to a generation which genuinely upheld the ethics of the press, strongly believed in the public's right to accurate information and that the role of the press should be strictly informative rather than entertaining.
Khalil Sabat
Born into a middle class family of Syrian origin on 3 June 1919, he lived his entire life in the Cairo district of Faggala, which until the 1970s was a thriving hub of the book trade. The district had a clear impact on the young Sabat whose literary skills manifested themselves at an early age when he was a student at the Patriarchal French school.
In 1942, he graduated from the French Department of Cairo University's Faculty of Arts and was quickly appointed as a teacher of French at a secondary school in the Nile Delta town of Tanta. Though Sabat found difficulty coping with the public school system, he resigned himself to the fact that teaching was the profession that suited him best. He later joined Cairo University's Institute of Editing, Translation and Journalism. Eight years of studying at the institute earned him a doctorate degree and a teaching position at Cairo University.
Alongside academia, Sabat began a career in journalism by joining feminist Dorreya Shafik in editing Bint Al-Nil [Daughter of the Nile] magazine from 1945 until 1957. He was later confronted by the difficult choice between journalism and teaching. He decided to give up his journalistic ambitions and devote his time to his books, students and lectures. "I'm an avid reader of newspapers but I don't see myself as a journalist," Sabat was once quoted as saying.
Sabat dedicatedly pursued his professional goals with considerable energy and enthusiasm, giving much of his time for almost five decades to university life and his students. He repeatedly called for a press code of ethics and defended the public's right to accurate and truthful information. In pursuit of this mission, Sabat, as a member of the Supreme Press Council, published 22 reports in the 1980s and 1990s assessing the condition of the press in this country. He also authored dozens of articles on the role of the press in Egyptian society.
In recent years he had been highly critical of the Egyptian press which he described as "going through a real crisis." He urged journalists to free themselves of hypocrisy and stop viewing the press as a means to make money. Sabat never lost hope that his call would be heeded. He is the author of several books including The history of printing in Arab countries and The story of printing. He translated Marshall MacLuhan's How to understand the Media which earned him a Charles de Gaulle award presented by President François Mitterrand in 1983.
Sabat will be always remembered by his students, some of whom reached the pinnacle of their profession.
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