By Galal Nassar In the late 1980s, the Middle East was fraught with disturbances. The Iraq-Iran war was still raging, the peace process was running into hurdles, and the United States was slowly but surely dominating the international scene, eclipsing its waning rival, the USSR. A new phase in international relations was unfolding, one that made it clear to regional powers, such as Egypt, that they needed to get their views across to the world as a whole. In Egypt's case, this meant having media that could speak to the world in its own language, both literally and in other ways. At home, tensions were also growing on the political scene. Demands for political, economic and social reform were growing as the country opened up to the outside world. International organisations were becoming more interested in the country and its economic and humanitarian development. Human-rights groups were fast becoming part of the fabric of civil society, and local groups were receiving moral and material backing from like-minded organisations abroad. Egypt needed a credible voice to speak for the country, and the Al-Ahram Establishment had the ability to produce an English-language publication that would be credible and informative. This new publication, it was agreed, had to be given unprecedented freedom, since otherwise it would not be able to win the trust of its readers, and in this way the Al-Ahram Weekly was born. Right from the start, credibility hinged on freedom, and serving the country's higher interests also, therefore, hinged on freedom. It was this crucial equation that made the Weekly into a success story. The Weekly was given real freedom, enough to tackle thorny topics without fear and enough to maintain balanced coverage without fear of censorship. The paper was also given adequate funding right from the start, in order to make sure that it could continue its mission without undue concerns about advertising or circulation. Egypt thus aimed to create an unbiased, professional English- language newspaper aimed in particular at international audiences, and the man given the job of creating this newspaper was Hosny Guindy, a veteran journalist with a heightened sense of moral and professional commitment. During the preparatory meetings for the new newspaper, Guindy was eager to instil professional and moral principles into his team, something that made a deep impact on the young, myself included. He made everyone around him aware of the need to maintain high standards, something which we were ready to do because with these came the promise of freedom from all constraints except those of professional integrity. We were going to be able to write about everything in the new newspaper, as long as our reporting was accurate and unbiased. This was our mission. By honouring these standards, Guindy offered the world a view of Egypt's true face and a glimpse of a reality that may not always have been sweet, but was always relentlessly true. The Weekly was thus committed to reporting on all issues of public concern from a purely Egyptian viewpoint. It would tell it as it was, no embellishment or sensationalism allowed. It would also make room for views from across the political spectrum, conflicting as they might be. This was the Egyptian perspective for which Guindy strove. He wanted to serve the country's best interests, but he also knew that being national did not necessarily mean being pro- governmental. Instead, it meant being reliable and accurate. Guindy made it clear to all that his paper was not going to kowtow to the government, the presidency, or the security services. The Weekly belonged to Egypt's citizens, to the people who bought it on the stands, and the people who paid taxes in order to support it. And it took its mission seriously. It defended the interests of the Egyptian people everywhere, whether in the syndicates, the non-governmental organisations, the parties, the government, the presidency, the army, the clubs, or elsewhere. This was what made the Weekly a success. Unfortunately, some people did not share Guindy's vision, and to this day there are those who do not understand the Weekly 's mission. Yet, Guindy himself held his ground against frequent pressure, and his distaste for power and influence paradoxically made him a tough adversary, as he was willing to quit at a moment's notice if the paper's editorial independence or funding were compromised. It was this attitude that gave the rest of his team, especially the young, their hope and determination. Since Guindy's time, the Weekly 's editorial freedom has sometimes been the target of assault from official or influential quarters, assault which was a feature of Hani Shukrallah's time as editor-in-chief of the paper and which is far from being over today. While the paper's editorial freedom has escaped more or less unscathed, what has hit harder has been the financial austerity measures that have driven some of our colleagues to seek better- paid employment elsewhere. Nevertheless, some people have still made a point of questioning the paper's editorial integrity, accusing some of our colleagues of being closet communists because they covered industrial action, or accusing others of having fundamentalist sympathies because they reported on the confrontation between the security services and the Muslim Brotherhood. On the other hand, Weekly staff members have also been called government agents because they have kept the public informed of the president's decisions or the government's actions. Our coverage was boring, some people said, and we needed to lighten up by staying away from items that might upset government officials. Such accusations are revealing, not about this paper, but about the individuals who make them. Some of the criticism has been born out of a sheer inability to understand how a free press works, and some of our critics are still puzzled by our insistence on maintaining even-handed coverage, telling our readership to the best of our ability what it needs to know about the various players in the country, about labour protests, the arrests of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, government decisions, and all the rest of it. A close friend once asked me why I continued to do a job that had no prospect of bringing me fame and fortune. I could do better working for an Arab newspaper or for a satellite TV station, he thought. However, our conversation took place shortly after I had made a spectacular scoop, perhaps one of the biggest in this paper's, or Al-Ahram 's, history. It was 1997, and I had just uncovered the circumstances in which the Israeli submarine Dakar had been sunk off the Egyptian coast in 1968. The Israelis and Americans knew nothing about these circumstances, and searches for the sunken submarine had been going on for years. Writing in the Weekly, I was able to reveal that cadets from the Egyptian Navy College had sunk the submarine while it was on a mission to torpedo an Egyptian destroyer that had president Gamal Abdel-Nasser on board. The president would have been attending an Egyptian naval exercise at the time. I answered my friend by saying that I was addicted to freedom in journalism, and that I wanted to write what I wanted without pressure or constraints. To me, professionalism and freedom took precedence over fame and fortune. My colleagues and I take pride in defending the nation's higher interests through accurate and even-handed reporting. We believe that our efforts correct much of the misunderstanding that surrounds our societies, for it is better to tell the truth than to embellish reality. The image of the Arabs, as a culture and a people, has suffered from a lot of distortion in the Western media. Without a credible source from this region to rely upon, the misunderstandings that such distortion gives rise to would be even harder to overcome. For many years, the Zionist-controlled Western media has been the main source of information about this region and its people for many people worldwide. However, with the emergence of the Weekly and other like-minded Arab media, the media has now become a two-way street. The Weekly, along with other media organisations, has striven to maintain its objectivity and neutrality, and it may have to strive even harder over the coming weeks and months. With a regional conflict threatening to erupt, and parliamentary elections around the corner, let alone the continuing labour protests, someone will need to tell it as it is. There is turbulence in the streets, tensions in political circles, poverty in our midst, and corruption in the government and corporate worlds, and it is our responsibility to keep track of it all. There are also elements within the regime that dislike unbiased reporting. There are people who think of journalists as saboteurs, or as individuals who want to embarrass the government in order to please foreigners. There are people who see us as pessimists who are upsetting the country for no reason. I find these accusations as silly as they are disturbing. The Weekly has been a success story because of its freedom, credibility and objectivity. And its success has been a catalyst for progress in this country. Should we be forced to change our ways, should we have to abandon our neutrality in order to become a mouthpiece for one party or another, this would be a sad day for the nation as a whole. The Weekly has brought a ray of sunshine to the sky of the Egyptian and Arab media, and we are determined to keep it that way.
