Introduction
The year 2011 witnessed -as a lot of politicians and journalists call it- an arab spring or an arab uprising. It started on the 17th of December when Mohamed Bouazizi a Tunisian vegetable seller set himself on fire because he was multiply bullied on by the Tunisian government which president was Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who stepped down in mid January.
Followed by that was the Egyptian revolution that started on January 25th. A lot of people say that the Tunisian Revolution gave the push for the Egyptian people to revolt against the regime and against Mubarak's dictatorship.
Libya, Yemen and Syria followed the Egyptian revolution. The people started revolting against their governments and regimes everywhere. So far only two revolutions almost succeeded 100% in Tunis they just elected a president who was a blogger, and in Libya they killed their dictatorship and are planning to re build their country now.
Egypt is currently under the Military rule. In Yemen the people are divided and still revolting and in Syria it's bloody. Bashar El Assad the Syrian President is giving orders to their Military to kill as many people as they can who are revolting against the system.
All these "uprisings" are being covered by media. Each country is covering what's going on through their State Television and Governmental newspapers. And were covered by global news agencies as well.
This project will be focusing on the Egyptian television and newspapers and how they handled covering the revolution and what kind of ethical journalism points they ignored just to cover up to all the unfairness that was going on in the Egyptian government through out that past 30 years or so.
On July 21, 1969, The Egyptian TV started it's first black and white broadcast through one channel. The decision of starting television service in Egypt was taken first by the late King Farouk but it was delayed until 1959 due to the British-French-Israeli Suez invasion.
In 1960, the construction of the radio and television center "maspero" was completed and started broadcasting.
Throughout the history of Egypt, the state TV was always reflecting the authority's opinion. This was clear in it's support to the 1952 Revolution ideas and principles through the first years of its establishment. The state TV was used during the times of Nasser to sometimes tell unreal stories about the 1967 defeat for example which accordingly increased the degree of frustration and anger of the Egyptian people of this time.
When Anwar El Sadat was the Egyptian president, the state TV didn't improve it's performance much even though the numbers of channels increased and the hours of transmission was longer. The state TV was used again to transmit the government's view on the 1977 protests to the Egyptian citizens which included unreal and exaggerated information that lead to the suppression of these protests.
Speaking of printed press during Gamal Abd el Nasser it was also very restricted to criticise him or his government. A lot of journalists were arrested at that time if they thought of writing anything that was against the regime.
During Sadat's era it was a little bit lose there was a diversity in writing but no one had the complete freedom to write their opinion 100%.
So basically egyptian television and governmental newspapers until that moment have actually never been the voice of the egyptian people. They never represented them. They have always been the voice of the government, the inner voice to make the Egyptian people believe in what the government is doing and blind them from thinking about any thing else.
Egyptian State Television and governmental news papers pre Jan 25
Egyptian media before the January 25 uprising were deeply implicated with the state. They sort of had a way of dominating everything.
Even Egyptian satellite channels were under direct government supervision, operation and ownership. The Egyptian Radio and Television Union "ERTU", located in the Maspero Building in central Cairo, is the state agency that operates all terrestrially broadcast television in Egypt. Since 2009, ERTU has also included the Nile TV International satellite network. Both the ERTU and the television sector chairmen are appointed by the Minister of Information. And of course since they are appointed by a Minister they have to strictly follow all his commands.
They Egyptian State tv and governmental news papers never showed the bad side of the government. They always put Mubarak in a frame and treated him as if he was some kind of God. It was a taboo to criticise him or anything he did. Every now and then one could find a small piece of article in a local newspaper criticising a minister maybe. But it was never the main focus of the news papers and tv channels.
The content was in both almost identical. They would only list the achievements Mubarak and his government did this week for example, who he met what they talked about. They would write about future plans that supposedly would help the Egyptian people in the future and they make a huge thing out of these plans and a couple of years later it becomes forgotten.
A lot of politicians also say that the Egyptian media used football and made it in the last two years very important just to make the Egyptian people's mind busy with it and to avoid them thinking about the current situation in Egypt and how bad and corrupt everything is becoming.
That was sort of one way of manipulation how the people think and limiting their horizons of thinking and being able to create their own point of views rather than the ones the government wants them to have.
Egyptian State Television and governmental news papers from
January 25th till February 11th
January 25th has always been the "Police Day" in Egypt. It's something like "mother's day" but for the police. It's a day where the egyptian people should praise the police because they are the ones protecting them and they should pay them some respect on that day.
In 2011 on that day the people decided to show the police respect in a different way, because everyone knew how corrupt the police was and what kind of methods of brutality they used against prisoners and how they beat up people to death and one of the greatest examples is "Khaled Said" an Alexandrian young man who was beaten to death by the police.
On that day protests went on the streets in a lot of different places in Egypt and a lot of people got later on arrested and were beaten up by the police, tear gas was fired and the protesters.
During these protests the Egyptian Television didn't mention anything about them. They totally ignored them. And showed videos of the Egyptian police and celebrated their day on TV while the people were protesting against the regime and against the way the egyptian police deal with people.
Governmental newspapers covered the day as followed, they said that the Egyptian people went on the streets in demonstrations to show respect to the police and they even gave them flowers and chocolates.
Of course some Egyptians give the State television and newspapers a lot of credibility so they believed them that nothing had happened.
The next couple of days the Egyptian Television has went totally mad. They either aired complete lies or they ignored reporting on some things that were going on in Egypt.
They would bring a shot of Tahrir square where most of the Egyptians in Cairo were protesting and tell lies that these are thugs or spies or foreigners or Egyptians who have some kind of an agenda who are paid to destroy Egypt.
They'd pay people to speak on the television and fake stories for example the very famous " Tamer from Ghamra" who called and kept on crying on television that he was beaten by the protesters in Tahrir who are trying to distroy the country.
One of the methods they used to scare people away was letting people call on air and cry and shout and say that they are being attacked by thugs right now. That was a way to keep everyone at home protecting their families so that no one would go to Tahrir .
So basically thorough the first 18 days of the revolution till the day Mubarak stepped down Egyptian State Television and Governmental Newspapers were either telling lies or hiding the truth in some way.
Egyptian State Television and news papers after February 11th
(The transformation)
On February 11th 2011 former Egyptian President Mubarak stepped down after an 18 day of protesting by the Egyptian people.
At that day all of a sudden the Egyptian State television transformed completely, they were first against the protests and never were on the people's sides and were telling lies about them and all of a sudden after Mubarak stepped down the Egyptian television started celebrating the "Egyptian Revolution" that has led the bad President to step down though he was the good man half an hour earlier. That was some sort of a very schizophrenic act from a State Television.
All of a sudden the people in Tahrir became heroes after they've been called spies and thugs for 18 days.
The newspapers who totally ignored the protests and wrote lies about it had headlines the next day that " The people have won" and they praised the revolution and the Egyptians who died for this revolution they made heroes out of everyone they called thugs before.
That "transformation" was understood by a lot of people. Because they all thought that the anchors and journalists were under a lot of pressure during the 18 days and had to do their job -although personally I believe that they should've quit instead of telling lies because that is not a proper job- .
Starting that day the State Television and governmental newspaper finally were on the Revolution's side and started showing real footage of the demonstrations that they ignored showing during the 18 days.
Egyptian State Television and newspapers under the military rule
post January 25th
After Mubarak stepped down the Military took over and is now kind of replacing the President till the next presidential elections.
The way the Egyptian State Television and newspapers are dealing with the Military is the same way they dealt with Mubarak when he was ruling.
There's this famous phrase that has been used in the last few months "El magles khatt ahmar" which means the " Military Council is a Red line". No one is allowed to even think of criticising anything they do.
Those who did were arrested and faces military court. For example Maikel Nabil and Egyptian Blogger who in just one Blog showed footage and pictures of corruption in the Military, he showed how they helped in killing the protesters in Tahrir how on the famous "mawket el gamal" The Camel incident they were just watching from afar and didn't protect the protesters. He was arrested from his house after publishing that post online and faced military trial and has been in military prison ever since.
So after a huge revolution like this the Egyptian State Television and Newspapers are still representing the voice of the people in power not the Egyptian people.
A lot of facts are not allowed to be said on Egyptian television, lately the lies have appeared again. For example there was a huge demonstration in Tahrir in late November that was against the Military Trials for Civilians and it was asking SCAF to give the power to a revolutionary council and at the same time there was a demonstration in Abbaseya a pro SCAF one. The numbers in Abbaseya were very little compared to the one in Tahrir. What the State Television did was showing two pictures one from Tahrir and the other supposedly from Abbaseya though anyone who has been to Tahrir before could tell that both are in Tahrir but just two different angles.
A lot of activists have been asking and blogging lately about an #OccupyMaspero movement. Where they want to "clean" the maspero building -state TV- from all the lies and the authorities there that force the journalists and anchors to hide the truth from the Egyptian people. Activists think that this is the only way the Revolution would ever see light. Which is by cleaning the State Television from all the lies and old methods.
written on Monday December 12th 2011
