Egypt state media creates parallel universe

Egypt's state and the bulk of its privately owned TV stations created a 'parallel universe' designed to incite, subvert and misinform

The Egyptian revolution has embarrassed the country's state media by exposing its true purpose: defending the regime. They failed to change at a time when the regime itself was compelled to change.
“The state media has acted as a tool of the security services to strike at the protests,” Gamal Fahmy,a member of the council of theJournalists Syndicatetold Ahram Online.
Egyptian television stations are divided along the lines of state owned and independent. Critics believe both sides played a similar role using different techniques.
“I was really shocked to see the national media creating a parallel universe,” said Naila Hamdi, a professor of journalism at the American University in Cairo.
State media reported unprofessionally by airing a close shot of the empty Nile corniche then on the “pro-Mubarak protests” while not airing the Tahrir Square protests, but getting instead a very wide angle that shows as if very few people are protesting against the regime.
“We were not allowed to cover the anti-Mubarak protests just the pro-Mubarak ones, no balanced reporting was allowed,” reveals Shahira Amin, who resigned last Thursday from her position as deputy head of Nile TV in protest at the channel's reporting.
They were also blamed for only interviewing figures opposed to the revolt. “In many cases they were actually interviewing police agents,” said Fahmy.
Furthermore, the state media used to attack other media sources as the Qatari channel Al Jazeera. “They constructed a conspiracy theory about Al Jazeera, to push people away from it,” said Fahmy.
Meanwhile, some specialists felt that Al-Jazeera, inits own turn,revealed an anti-regmie bias in its coverage of the revolt. “I personally have turned to Al Arabiya (Saudi owned) because I felt Al Jazeera was biased,” Hamdi told Ahram Online.
The Egyptian media's biased reporting was backed by an agenda setting and framing theories. “We were only allowed to cover what they tell us, not the truth,” said Amin.
First the media used the “denial technique” by not reporting the quantity and the strength of the protests, and, when they turned into a full on revolt on “Angry Friday”, they used the “fear appeal.”
“They reported heavily on the theft and fires taking place all over Egypt to scare people,” said Khaled El-Sergany, head of the media section at Dostour El-Asli online newspaper.
After that came the conspiracy theory game, where the media anchors andinterviewees were trying to convince the audience that many of the protesters were Israeli or Iranian or Hamas agents who were trained to spark the demonstrations. “The girl appearing on the Mehwar private channel saying she is an Israeli agent, if she were should have gone to the security services instead of going to TV,” said Fahmy. “I consider this a murder persuasion attempt by the media.”
The climate of fear and lies has also seen many journalists being beaten and detained and their equipment confiscated. Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, CNN, Times, CBS, Al-Shorouk newspaper and The Guardian have reported several attacks on their journalists. One night, all TV news cameras were confiscated, there was no live coverage starting Thursday evening, the evening before “Departure Friday".
“By the detention of journalists the government is sending a clear message that they don't want a free media in the country,” El-Sergany told Ahram Online.