As Egypt prepares for presidential elections in less than two weeks’ time, the country is on the brink of chaos. Tensions have been brewing for more than a year and the patience of Egyptians is wearing thin. They yearn for stability and many feel betrayed by the country’s de facto military rulers who have held power since Mubarak was toppled in February 2011.
“The ruling military generals who promised us stability have only delivered brutality and repression,” complained 24-year-old activist Tarek Ali at a protest two weeks ago outside the Defence Ministry in Abbasia.
The violent confrontations between pro-democracy activists and security forces that have erupted sporadically during the transitional period have been the focus of local media, but once again there has been a stark contrast between the independent media coverage of the deadly violence and that shown on Egyptian State TV.
Democracy activists accuse state television of launching a vicious defamation campaign against them — one which, they say, has largely succeeded in turning public opinion against them.
“Right after last year’s mass uprising, everyone was proud of the young activists who started our revolution,” says taxi driver Maher Sobhy. “Now, we hate them for causing chaos and instability.”
The vilification campaign is reminiscent of a similar campaign launched by the state-run broadcaster during last year’s 18-day mass uprising. State TV has long been described by critics as “a propaganda machine” of the ousted authoritarian regime. The broadcaster initially dismissed the anti-Mubarak protests as nonevents, labelling the pro-democracy activists as “foreign agents” and “anarchists.”
When pro-Mubarak rallies were staged on 1 February 2011, state TV channels exaggerated the number of protesters, reporting that “the streets were flooded with thousands of Mubarak supporters” instead of the few hundred who were in fact there. Many Egyptians turned to foreign satellite channels and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to follow the events in central Cairo. Angry protesters in Tahrir Square retaliated by carrying banners that denounced and ridiculed state TV, branding presenters who worked there “liars”.
But halfway through the uprising, state TV made an abrupt turnaround, adopting a more pro-revolutionary tone.
Media analysts saw the change as a sign that the regime was losing its grip on power. But the shift had come too late and state TV had already lost many of its viewers.
For a few weeks after the fall of Mubarak, state television fought to regain credibility. Opposition figures, including Islamists who had not been welcome in the building, were invited to appear on talk shows, and state TV reporters made a noticeable effort to enhance the ratings of their channels through factual, unbiased reporting. But the spell of freedom was short-lived and news editors and anchors soon fell back into their old habits. State employees began practicing self-censorship again after several journalists and talk show hosts working for private channels were summoned to the Military Prosecutors’ office after they criticised the military regime. Two bloggers were convicted in military courts for expressing their views in blog posts and on Facebook — a move that sent a strong message to journalists and broadcasters that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) would not tolerate criticism.
Tamer Hanafi, a news anchor working for the Arabic state-run Nile TV was investigated a few months after the revolution for refusing to heed calls from the station manager to abruptly cut his programme short after his studio guest, the outspoken activist Bothayna Kamel lashed out at the military rulers on air. Tamer, his face flushed with anger, told viewers that he had been ordered to end the show but that he would continue because he did not see anything wrong with Bothayna’s comments.
Other presenters and reporters who attempted to stand up to censorship have been sternly reprimanded by their bosses in recent months. Finding that the stakes are high — they could lose their jobs — most state employees have reverted to the old ways, obediently following directives from senior management.
News anchors complain that they have to read what their editors write without questioning the source. One senior anchor, who spoke on condition of anonymity said she had had to read that “the Emergency Law was in place to guarantee freedoms” and that “protesters in Kasr El Eini were hurling rocks at the military forces” when there had actually been an exchange of rock throwing. “Any anchor who deviates from the adopted state line lands in trouble,” she lamented. During most of the protests, state TV broadcast exclusive footage of the ongoing clashes shot by the Ministry of Interior, most of it portraying the soldiers and riot police as victims rather than aggressors.
Little has changed at the state broadcaster where the anchor lamented that “SCAF has replaced Mubarak as the red line not to be crossed.” Despairingly the anchor explained that the senior military general who was appointed Minister of Information now exercises control over all broadcasts and ensures that state TV continues to churn out propaganda messages about the lack of security, foreign meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs, the threats foreign-funded NGOs pose to national security or the plummeting stock market.
State TV’s flagrantly biased coverage of the deadly October clashes last year between Coptic protesters and security forces triggered another wave of stinging criticism of the state broadcaster, once again earning it the wrath of the public. The news network was accused of inciting the sectarian violence in which at least 27 people were killed — some of them crushed to death by army tanks — after Channel One’s lead anchorwoman Rasha Magdy urged Muslims “to protect the army from Christian attackers.”Although an investigative committee later cleared state TV of the charge, critics like media expert Hisham Qassem say repeating the mistakes of the past has cost the broadcaster its reputation for life.
Sixteen months after the onset of Egypt’s uprising, Egyptians are still struggling to shed decades of repression and transform their country into a democratic and free society. In a country where 35 per cent of the population is illiterate and relies heavily on the state-run broadcaster for information, a highly politicised, partisan state TV is a major impediment to the democratic process. “The ruling generals who have on several occasions since the revolution turned their guns on peaceful protesters are using State TV as another weapon to kill the revolution,” said 29 year- old activist Waleed Hamdy. They know it is a powerful tool and have used it to further their interests.”
Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt faces fresh questions over his involvement with News Corp’s bid for control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, as emails shown to the Leveson Inquiry today suggest he sought guidance from the company over phone hacking.
The 27 June 2011 email from News Corp PR chief Frédéric Michel to ex-News International CEO Rebekah Brooks — who was today giving evidence at the Inquiry — read:
JH is now starting to looking [sic] to phone hacking/practices more thoroughly and has asked me to advise him privately in the coming weeks and guide his and No 10’s positioning…
Hunt’s spokeswoman has said the claim was “inaccurate”.
The email also revealed that Hunt was due to make an “extremely helpful” statement to Parliament regarding the bid, based on his belief that “phone hacking has nothing to do with the media plurality issues”. On 30 June Hunt announced the bid could go ahead, subject to one further public consultation.
The 27 June message adds heat to Hunt, who has already faced intense pressure in the wake of 160 pages’ worth of emails between Michel and Hunt’s adviser Adam Smith that were released to the Inquiry on 24 April. These revealed that News Corp was being given advance feedback of the government’s scrutiny of the BSkyB bid.
Smith has since resigned, saying that he had acted without Hunt’s authority and that his contact with News Corp “went too far”. Hunt has contended that he himself acted within the ministerial code.
News Corp abandoned the takeover bid in July 2011 in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.
Brooks’ day-long appearance marked the second day of the third module of the Inquiry, which is examining relations between press and politicians. Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC said these relationships may have been “over-cosy” in his opening remarks yesterday.
Brooks swayed from appearing nervous to restless and was more impassioned towards the end of her evidence. Discussing her contact with David Cameron, Brooks revealed the PM signed off his text messages to her with “LOL”, under the impression it meant “lots of love” rather than “laugh out loud”.
When Brooks clarified the difference to the PM, he then stopped using the acronym, the Inquiry learned.
Brooks’s contact with Cameron has been the focus of attention this week, with reports that the PM had texted her up to 12 times a day. Brooks dismissed the claim as “preposterous”, noting that he would send her messages once or twice a week.
She told the Inquiry she had received messages of commiserations from Cameron, chancellor George Osborne and former prime minister Tony Blair after her July 2011 resignation. She confirmed that she received a message from Cameron, the gist of which was to “keep your head up”, but that it was not a “direct text message”.
She said that she spoke to Cameron “in general terms” after the Guardian published its July 2009 story on phone hacking that had claimed the practice was not limited to a single reporter. She added that they discussed it in more detail the following year as civil cases were brought forward.
The atmosphere between Jay and Brooks turned dour as the afternoon wore on and Jay’s usually mild questioning became more terse. Brooks defended some of the Sun’s more controversial coverage, notably its 2006 story on former prime minister Gordon Brown’s son Fraser suffering from cystic fibrosis.
When pressed over the source of the piece, Brooks refused to budge, asserting that the story came from the father of another cystic fibrosis sufferer. Brown had alleged the paper obtained the information through hacking into his son’s medical records, which the redtop countered was “false” and “a smear”.
For Lord Justice Leveson, the issue was whether it was “part of the culture of the press that attack is the best form of defence”.
Brooks, who said she was friends with Brown’s wife Sarah — whom she called an “amazing woman” — maintained she had the couple’s express permission before publishing the story.
“If the Browns had asked me not to run cystic fibrosis story, I wouldn’t have,” she said.
She also countered Jay’s suggestion that the Sarah’s Law campaign run by the News of the World to “name and shame” known sex offenders was “sensationalised” and “inflammatory”. Brooks maintained the approach taken, arguing she could not predict the reprisals that ensued (a Newport-based paediatrician was mistaken for a paedophile in August 2000, with the word “paedo” being written across the front of her home). However, she conceded that she had some regrets, mentioning the list of convicted paedophiles that had been published in the paper.
Throughout her evidence, Brooks reiterated the power of the Sun was its “readership”, whose voices she had sought to reflect during her editorship from 2003-2009.
“If a journalist ever compromised their readership or their role through friendship then it’s their failing,” she said.
The Inquiry continues on Monday.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
Anyone looking for a lesson in deadpan testimony could have done worse than tune into Andy Coulson’s appearance at the Leveson Inquiry today.
It was an unedifying session with the former News of the World editor and ex-Number 10 communications chief, who was protected from having to discuss the phone hacking scandal due to his July 2011 arrest and subsequent bail as part of Operation Weeting.
Lord Justice Leveson and Robert Jay QC trod particularly heavily on his meeting with George Osborne in March 2007 to discuss the communications role with the Conservative party. “Did it not occur to you — why are they asking me?” Jay asked.
Coulson, who said he entered into the conversation with a “degree of reluctance” and that he “wasn’t thinking about politics at all”, reiterated that he had been in the newspaper industry for a long time, running campaigns and managing a team. Given the “electoral mountain” the party had to climb, these were seemingly useful credentials.
“The conversation was very much, ‘What do we need to do to get elected?'” Coulson said, clarifying that his role was to build relationships across media (he stressed more than once the “fundamental” role of television in explaining policy).
Pressing him further over his News International background, Coulson said his time at the media organisation might have been “considered useful” by the Tory party when considering him for the position, but “was not specifically discussed as being an advantage.” He also any refuted any suggestion that former NI chief executive Rebekah Brooks — due to give evidence tomorrow — had any influence in his recruitment.
Coulson was keen to stress that contact between the party and the media was above board. In his witness statement he wrote that “there was no quid pro quo” between them and NI or any other media organisation.
“I would certainly have taken every opportunity, to the point of becoming a bore, to sing the praises of David Cameron and the Conservative Party and to encourage them to support us. That was my job,” Coulson wrote.
He conceded that he was “not minded to disagree” with David Cameron that the relationships between some of the media and the government had become too cosy. Yet he warned Leveson against erecting more barriers, arguing that the public was already disengaging with politics and further restrictions would exacerbate “what is already a difficult process.”
Coulson ended his terse but lengthy afternoon session by noting the Inquiry has suggested that “a friendship is always based on some ulterior motive”. On the contrary, Leveson responded, arguing that the key was to maintain clarity in relationships.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
Speculation around Lord Justice Leveson’s expected report this autumn has overshadowed the vital libel reform identified in the Queen’s speech, says Kirsty Hughes
The violent confrontations between pro-democracy activists and security forces that have erupted sporadically during the transitional period have been the focus of local media, but once again there has been a stark contrast between the independent media coverage of the deadly violence and that shown on Egyptian State TV.