Cairo: 2 July 2019
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said today that the editorial policy of most media institutions in Egypt is not defined or established by those in charge of the Egyptian media establishment; rather it is “most probably” dictated and imposed by the censor of the sovereign bodies, which not only ommits topics and news reports that they deemed inappropriate, but they went further to interfere in the writing and editing of the information material and media reports in most of these institutions. Most media outlets in Egypt have become a poor means of propaganda, after they have been held hostage by sovereign bodies that dictate what they write and impose on them a uniform publishing layout. Media professionals in such outlets have become just readers of the teleprompter/Autocue prepared beforehand by the sovereign bodies, while free media outlets continue to face confiscation and treason accusations, in addition to the imprisonment of its journalists. The incident of “Samsung device” would be the best proof of that.
This is addressed in a position paper that monitors seven of the pro-government media outlets in Egypt in how they reported the death of former President Mohamed Morsi, and is entitled “About some Egyptian media outlets’ coverage of former President Mohamed Morsi’s death…The teleprompter bears witness to the deterioration of media, ‘Al-Masry Al-Youm’ practices professionalism despite restrictions”.
The paper details how professionalism was absent in the news coverage of Mohamed Morsi’s death despite the availability of all the conditions of important news story for the audience. The exception was Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, which was spared the trap of professionalism fallback despite restrictions; as the rest of media coverage lacks professional standards in light of the extensive marginalization of the Morsi’s death news story, while others went further to personally insult the deceased, in response to the stances opposing the former president’s imprisonment circumstances and the confusing circumstances of his death.
Seven media outlets involved in the paper, given the fact that they “are close to the regime and are not banned or blocked unlike the independent websites. They are: Al-Ahram and El-Watan newspapers, along with Al-Nahar and Sada El-Balad satellite TV channels and Masrawy and Youm7 news websites.
