Egyptian press: Hello and farewell

Dina Ezzat reads the fallout from a turbulent week in the inner world of the Egyptian press

---

This week was exceptional in the life of the Egyptian press; one that brought mixed feelings, with words of sorrow and happiness spoken in one breath.

It was a week when most of the leading heads of the "national" press were required by the state to step down from top positions and relinquish front-page columns occupied for close to a quarter of a century so that new, younger but less experienced successors could step in to undertake the vast responsibility of managing several of the nation's semi-official dailies and weeklies.

The change of guard that occurred less than three months ahead of presidential elections included top publications such as Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar, Al-Gomhuriya. All above 65-year old editors-in-chief of state- owned papers bade farewell to their readers and staff in their executive capacities but promised to stay on as regular columnists and commentators.

Most of those who left, including Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram's editor- in-chief and chairman of the board, were keen to offer their balance sheet. Others chose to make the transition that took them from the front- page to the back-page as if nothing had happened.

"So Long As My Heart Beats", was the title of Nafie's goodbye article that appeared on the front-page of Al-Ahram on Monday morning, announcing Nafie's executive retirement and the beginning of what he called "a new and bright phase" of his career.

In that last article Nafie indirectly answered all accusations that were levelled against him, and many of other top national editors. He stressed that throughout his term as editor-in-chief and chairman of the board he worked hard to give Al-Ahram the due editorial and financial prestige it deserved, and that he made no compromises to appease the government, or for that matter the head of state.

Nafie dedicated an entire paragraph to stress that "throughout a quarter of a century President Hosni Mubarak never intervened once to remove a journalist or a writer [from Al-Ahram ] or to impose an opinion. Dialogue [between Mubarak and Al-Ahram ] was always cool and focussed on the nation's best interest."

On Wednesday morning, Ossama Saraiyah, Nafie's successor as editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram -- albeit not as chairman of the board, since the posts have been separated by state decision -- also dedicated adequate tribute to Mubarak's role in supporting freedom of the press. In his first editorial on the front-page of Al-Ahram -- his name on the masthead that was once taken by Egyptian legends such as Youssef El-Seba'i, Ahmed Bahaeddin and Mohamed Hassanein Heikal -- Saraiyah "renewed an oath of loyalty to President Hosni Mubarak who has been giving so endlessly".

Meanwhile, news, rumours and interpretation related to the change of guard in the semi-official papers continued to float in the papers -- the semi-official, independent and opposition alike.

On the front page of Al-Ahrar on Tuesday, under the cartoonist name of Goha, the editor of the independent daily mouthpiece of Al-Ahrar Party congratulated the new editors on a job that he qualified as tougher than they would expect.

On Wednesday, the daring independent weekly Al-Doustour issued a back-page congratulations to the incoming editors and wished them good luck "in a tough job ahead".

On the same issue, Khaled El-Sergani, editor of page 2 of Al-Dustour, called on the new editors to take stock of the mistakes of the outgoing editors, without elaborating much on the nature of these mistakes.

On Wednesday, too, the independent daily -- with a government affinity -- Nahedit Misr printed a full-page feature that quoted the new editors on their plans "to rescue the national papers", which according to many independent and opposition commentators are running bankrupt and stagnant. Most seemed to appeal for the confidence of new staff and readers alike. They also were keen to promise reforms of managerial and editorial policies -- always in the best interests of the nation.

Sarayiah and Al-Gomhouriya 's chairman of the board, Mohamed Abu Hadid -- an accomplished columnist in his own right -- said that the core of their future task is to give adequate attention to the interests and legitimate worries of journalists, so that they can perform better.

Abdallah Hassan, editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of the official Middle East News Agency -- the only to keep both jobs -- specifically referred to his commitment to lobby for the elimination of all laws that restrict the freedom of the press and of journalists.

Others offered similar thoughts and iterations and stressed that they would do everything in their power to strike the sensitive and hard to attain balance between the special relations that ties the state with their papers and the right of all press to be an independent judge of the performance of the government and top officials -- something that their predecessors declined to claim in their goodbye notes that they achieved.

However, as some commentators argued this week, the change of the heads of the national press establishments may not necessarily prove to be remedy to what some qualify as the dilapidated state of the press. According to his analysis of the "crisis of the press" in his regular column "An Egyptian Vision" in the daily Al-Akhba r, Mohamed Wagdi Qandil argued that it was late President Anwar El-Sadat who banned the extension of an editor's term in office beyond the age of 60, to revenge political differences with key journalists in 1980, not long before his assassination.

Changing guard is not the issue, Qandil said, but rather change of editorial and managerial policies is what the papers need. "I am not contesting the constant need for change, as needs be, of editors and chairmen of the national press, or the need to open doors to the contribution of a younger generation of journalists, but what I am saying is that the current crisis of the press requires an alternative approach ... that might adopt the overall state-orientation towards privatisation," Qandil argued Wednesday.

The possible privatisation of the national papers was not an issue that received the attention of the Egyptian press this week.

Meanwhile, the bigger story of the Egyptian press continued to get coverage. On Tuesday Nahedit Misr reported that the Higher Council of the Press decided that the maximum number of years in office for any editor-in-chief will be six, and that no chairman of the board will keep his job for longer than eight.

Al-Wafd, the daily mouthpiece of the right wing opposition Wafd Party, and the weekly Al-Ahali, the mouthpiece of the left wing Al-Tagammu Party, reported that three journalists have started a hunger strike to draw attention to the delay of the state in adopting laws that put an end to the right of the government and individuals to pursue the prosecution of journalists on vague libel guidelines.

"I was not surprised that the Shura Council and People Assembly went to recess this year without debating and issuing the press law," wrote Hussein Abdel-Raziq, secretary- general of Al-Tagammu Party in his regular Al-Ahali column "To the Left" on Wednesday.

According to Abdel-Raziq, the issue of the freedom of the press is not a priority for the state at this particular moment.

"It is incomprehensible that the government procrastinates for 15 months in implementing a promise that was publicly made by the president himself last March during the inauguration of the Fifth Congress of Journalists to eliminate laws allowing for the imprisonment of journalists upon conviction for libel, unless maybe the president has changed his mind," Abdel-Raziq argued.

And on Wednesday, reported in semi-official, opposition and independent papers alike, Galal Aref, president of the Press Syndicate, proposed 31 July as a tentative date for elections for the Press Syndicate board, and for his own post.