Serene Assir visits the press centre catering for journalists covering the elections As Egypt went to the polls this week, world media gathered in Cairo to cover the event. Accompanying claims that the elections would be transparent, journalists -- Egyptian and international -- were granted space by the Ministry of Information within the Grand Hyatt Hotel on the banks of the River Nile in order to work, with special press cards issued in order to facilitate entry into polling stations. Contrasting the usual experience of reporters in Egypt, who more often than not face harassment by security officials as well as restricted access, the press centre would, according to one ministry official who requested anonymity, promote transparency in order to enable journalists to cover the event "objectively and freely", "without any interference whatsoever". In all, the official added, some 2,000 Egyptian and foreign journalists covered the elections. The press centre was furnished with computers for free use by journalists, as well as telephones, fax machines and televisions airing up-to-date news. In addition, various public figures visited throughout the day, including head of the Egyptian Centre for Human Rights, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, while television reporters set up cameras and reported news to viewers across the world. "I was actually very surprised by the way everything was made so much easier by the government," a television reporter from the Ukraine told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The very fact that I was granted a permit to cover the elections by the Egyptian Embassy in Kiev without delay impressed me." She added that she was pleasantly surprised that she "even managed to set up the Ukrainian script on the computers provided here, so I was very happy that I could file my reports in my native language." "I think this event has been exceptional for any journalist trying to get work done in Cairo," Jong, a television reporter from Korea said. "Usually you feel very constricted in Cairo; you don't, as a journalist, really feel that you can roam around and film. But it seems that the government and security forces have really tried to make today different." Asked for his evaluation, Nasser Ahmed Kamel, chairman of the State Information Service said, "you can see for yourself that things are going very well. People are exchanging and sharing information, reporters are getting their work done, and all in all the elections are being reported without significant trouble." However, not all was rosy at the centre. "I have all of these facilities at the office," Simon Apiko of Agence France Presse said. "Much more had been promised. We had been told that we would have immediate access to official statements as they were issued through the day, footage of the various candidates going to cast their own vote, and figures indicating voter turnout. None of this was actually provided to us." Hala Fawzi of The Egyptian Gazette agreed that the facilities looked sharper than they were in practical terms. "I am disappointed that the only television coverage that we have here is from local channels. In order to work, we need to have access to the kind of diverse, in-depth reporting that the satellite channels provide," she told the Weekly. "I cannot visit and evaluate the situation at all polling stations. A media centre should allow for reporters to have access to information from across the country at all times. I suppose this goes to show that the media always faces problems from the government." Fawzi also complained that the press cards issued by the Ministry of Information were not actually as valuable as reporters had initially been told. "Reporters from the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya satellite channel were actually barred from entering one of the ballot stations this morning," she said. One photographer for Al-Ahram, Sherif Sonbol, concurred: "Officials at the voting stations didn't even know what these cards were, or what kind of access they were supposed to grant."
