WATANI International
8 February 2009
The issue of freedom of expression is among the most widely discussed these days. Yet despite the current unlimited threshold of freedom of expression and the scarce number of red lines, not a month passes without news of libel or defamation cases taken to court, or complaints about the circulation of erroneous information or false rumours that may delude or worry the public. No matter whether the court hands down prison sentences or fines, the question that goes begging an answer is: where are the facts? And how are they being reported in the press?
As I write this I have before me two recent studies that tackle the issue of newspaper writing in Egypt and how closely it follows the appropriate standards in the field of informing the public, and shaping and influencing convictions. The first study, conducted by the Andalus centre for studies on tolerance and combating violence, comes within a wider one that monitors irregularities in the press field, under the title “An eye on the press”. The second study, issued by the Supreme Press Council, is a case study of how Egyptian national, partisan, and independent papers tackled the murder of the two young women Heba and Nadine who were killed two months ago in the Cairo satellite city of Sheikh Zayed. This crime shook the public twice. First, upon the discovery of the horrendous details of the murder and the murderer’s incentive in committing the crime, and second upon the discovery of the huge volume of falsities and unsubstantiated information which the papers had rushed to print. In their quest to raise circulation figures the papers threw to the wind all scruples about damaging the reputation of two dead women no longer able to defend themselves against reporting what severely lacked in honesty.
The Andalus Centre study is both interesting and significant since it offers—for the first time—a study in the violations committed by journalists and papers against one another. The obvious paradox is that the very people supposedly concerned with exposing the facts and fighting for freedom of expression have stooped to using inferior language in wars of words nurtured by material that is intentionally falsified to delude the reader. All that is done to serve differences in opinion or perspective.
The study exposes a serious flaw that challenges Egyptian papers, that of the scarcity of information and the lack of transparency, leading to, not surprisingly, rampant conjecture or guesswork to fill in the missing facts. The practice is in no way condonable, and that flaw must be rectified for the sake of responsible journalism.
The study provides objective, meticulous analyses of the performance of Egyptian papers. It concludes that journalistic practice in Egypt exhibits scarce sensitivity when tackling issues of pluralism, tolerance, or fighting violence and discrimination, and shows no respect for freedom, diversity, or privacy rights. The profession whose raison d’être is to expose the facts and help shape an informed public opinion has deteriorated into libelling competitors in indecent language.
The violation figures are appalling; national, partisan, and independent papers notwithstanding. I am proud to say, however, that Watani was among the only three Cairo papers that were cited to have committed no violations whatsoever on this front. This is of course no mere coincidence, but the fruit of constant efforts to adhere to a strict code of honour.
The second study exposes how far the majority of the Cairo papers departed from the code of journalistic honour and the law regulating the press while reporting on the Heba / Nadine murder. The law bans tackling investigations or courtroom details in criminal cases, since this may directly subvert the course of justice. It also obliges papers to refrain from printing flawed or incomplete information, fabricating details, printing unsubstantiated material, or using the details of the private lives of persons to defame or sully their reputation. The study provides samples of material printed by some papers with very wide readership that did just that. And again, it gives me great comfort that Watani was outside this fray.
The dilemma that will always face journalism will be the eternal conflict between professional integrity and professional exclusivity.
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