Last week's battle between representatives of the state-owned and opposition press is further evidence of the long-standing problems within Egyptian journalism, writes Shaden Shehab The battle of Egyptian journalists against laws restricting the freedom of the press is as old as the history of newspapers in Egypt. And since 1941, when journalists succeeded in establishing their own professional union, the Press Syndicate, that union has been the headquarters from where all such battles have been fought. Yet, today, with the margin of freedom enjoyed by the press and opinion getting wider due to the establishment of many independent and opposition papers and the pluralist climate in the country in general, the Press Syndicate is witnessing unprecedented divisions among its members, with some threatening to walk out and set up a parallel professional association. Matters came to a head last week when, during a TV talk show, two invited guests, one head of a state-owned news establishment and the other the editor-in-chief of an opposition weekly, accused each other of being either a stooge of the regime or an agent of foreign powers. The show was given over to a discussion of the circumstances in which slandering the president of the republic might be considered a criminal offence and aired on the Orbit satellite channel. The following day, the Press Syndicate's governing council met and decided to take disciplinary action against both journalists -- Karam Gabr, chairman of the board of the state-owned Rose El-Youssef press establishment and Abdel-Halim Qandil, editor-in-chief of the opposition weekly Al-Karama and voice of the Nasserist Karama group -- warning them that their behaviour breached the profession's code of ethics. The daily Rose El-Youssef then launched a ferocious attack on the Press Syndicate, accusing it of having lost its legitimacy and of intensifying rifts between journalists by promoting "debased" journalism. The paper's banner headline also called for "the establishment of a professional association that would be a substitute for the weak [Press] Syndicate." Meanwhile, in what appeared to be a rally in support of Gabr, 12 editors-in-chief of state-owned newspapers held a meeting last Thursday at the headquarters of the Akhbar Al-Yom press establishment. A statement was then released in which the signatories called for the profession to be "cleansed of vulgar and debased" journalism. "We demand that the Press Syndicate bear out its responsibility, give up its partisan politics, and implement the profession's code of ethics," the statement said, claiming that the heads of the state-owned press establishments were being "blackmailed" by opposition newspapers in an attempt to distort their image. Though last week's battle seemed to be one pitting the editors of government papers against those of opposition and independent papers, in reality the matter is more complex. For last week's meeting, which was supposed to take its lead from the daily Rose El-Youssef' s call for the establishment of an alternative press association, ended up by referring the subject to a syndicate the legitimacy of which had been challenged the day before. The statement which came out of this meeting did not mention the name of Gabr, nor did it contain any reference to the attack he had received at the hands of Qandil, who had accused him of being an "agent of the police". Observers say that though the editors meeting at Akhbar Al-Yom was supposed to vindicate Gabr against Qandil and to call the first shots against the syndicate and its chairman, Galal Aref, himself a journalist at Akhbar Al-Yom though also an opposition figure, some of those attending the meeting disagreed about the wisdom of any such action. Instead, they argued that since both editors had made libelous accusations against each other, supporting one of them against the other would send out a negative message to the public and indicate that the editors of state-owned papers held a monopoly over slandering their adversaries. Attempts at mediation between the warring sides are currently underway in an attempt to close a rift that not only threatens to split the Press Syndicate, but may also set a precedent for the establishment of "parallel unions" elsewhere. The state would not wish to see this happening, particularly in the larger unions which have already suffered from opposition attacks because they are state-controlled. A meeting to be attended by both the representatives of the state-owned and the opposition newspapers and aiming to defuse the crisis is due to take place at the syndicate on Saturday. The editors of the state-owned newspapers are expected to meet today to prepare the agenda for the meeting. However, while these efforts may defuse the tension for the time being, the long-standing ailments of the Egyptian press, which the current crisis has only drawn attention to, are unlikely to disappear. The giant state-owned press establishments, such as Al-Ahram, Akhbar Al-Yom and Dar Al-Tahrir, which publish the country's three oldest dailies along with scores of other publications, are riddled with bureaucracy, over-employment, and practices lingering from older times when all media outlets were state- owned. While the new private publications owned by independent businessmen and opposition parties are more slick and enjoy greater freedom, they have little access to the circles of power within the ruling establishment, something which is still the monopoly of the editors of the national press appointed by the state. Veteran Egyptian journalist Salama Ahmed Salama says that the regime itself is partly to be blamed for this sad state of affairs. "It treats the opposition and independent papers like illegitimate children," he said. "Since neither the president nor any other officials talk to them, in their attempts to have the edge they sometimes resort to sensationalism."
