Mustafa El-Minshawy looks at the debate surrounding journalists participating in the various presidential candidates' election campaigns The nation's first multi-candidate elections seem to have catalysed a thriving business for journalists. While several media insiders have joined the campaigns launched by the 10 presidential hopefuls, others have been hired by local and foreign institutions to give courses training young reporters on how to cover the elections. "It really is our season," said Ashour Abdel-Rahman, a journalist who joined Ghad Party Chairman Ayman Nour's campaign. "We can get much more money, experience, contacts, and fame, while observing the candidates as they interact with the voters at the same time." Nour's campaign has employed dozens of other journalists at the Ghad Party's weekly newspaper, which became daily just as the campaigning began on 17 August. Other presidential candidates have picked major media figures to help them out. President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) -- which has allotted LE10 million for the campaign -- chose Lamees El-Hadidi, executive chief editor of the popular business weekly Al-Alam Al-Youm, to head its Arab and foreign media division. "We are dealing with, and releasing, information on the party in a more accurate and professional way," El-Hadidi said, "rather than repeating the emotional rhetoric that has marked [parliamentary] election campaigns in Egypt for decades." Wafd Party chairman and presidential candidate Noaman Gomaa chose Mohamed Sherdi -- a journalist at the party's mouthpiece -- to help run his media campaign. Other journalists from the party's daily newspaper have joined Sherdi on the campaign. The seven other parties fielding candidates, meanwhile, seem to be operating their propaganda campaigns on shoestring budgets -- using just a two or three-member team of journalists. But it is the NDP's hiring of El-Hadidi and other journalists who otherwise work for the state-owned and independent press that has generated the most controversy. Advocates of the trend say that with journalists on board, information on electoral platforms will end up being more accurate and detailed -- to voters' benefit. The stipulation, however, would seem to be that these journalists take a leave of absence from their regular jobs during the campaign, so as not to create conflict of interests. It would also be a good idea, many say, if journalists involved in campaigns truly believe in the party they are campaigning for. Although El-Hadidi is on leave from her newspaper to both focus her energies on Mubarak's campaign and avoid conflict of interests, she chose not to respond to a question by Al-Ahram Weekly on whether or not she believes in the NDP's platform. Prior to joining the ruling party's campaign, El-Hadidi was known for her weekly column's often- sharp criticisms of the NDP government's policies. Journalist Tareq Hassan, on leave from Al-Ahram to work with the NDP, also chose not to answer the same question, saying his loyalties were a personal matter. Prominent columnist Magdi Mehanna said some journalists had been "lured" by the NDP into joining the campaign with promises of big money and possible influence, rather than any honest acceptance on their part of the party's platform. "The NDP has a lot of attractive incentives to attract journalists to its campaign," he said. That type of deal, however, may backfire after the campaign is over. Abdullah Schlieffer, a professor of journalism at the American University in Cairo, said many of these journalists' reputations would suffer in the aftermath of the campaign. "I can see how the elections can help journalists. But I can also see how it could hurt them as well," Schlieffer said. Their readership base, as well as the credibility of their opinions, may suffer, he said. According to Schlieffer, even though journalists regularly join political campaigns in the US, it is "hard to do that in Egypt where there is no objective journalism to begin with." Mehanna and other analysts would agree that much of the press coverage of the elections is not very objective in the first place. "The press, especially state-run newspapers, is awash with misleading coverage of the candidates, including incorrect information, baseless charges, and negative news meant to ridicule all the candidates other than Mubarak," Mehanna said. Gamila Ismail, candidate Nour's wife and head of his media campaign, said the "NDP has co-opted most journalists, which is why so much of the coverage is unbalanced and biased." Ismail, a TV presenter and Newsweek correspondent, said the media is tremendously biased towards the sitting president. After Nour announced his platform in Bab Al-Shi'riya, she said, "in front of a crowd of 6,000 of his supporters, most state-run newspapers chose not to publish photos of the gathering. When they did, the photos were edited to make Nour look like he was alone, speaking to himself." Adding to the confusion, perhaps, a new daily newspaper published by the state-run Rose El-Youssef magazine was also launched as the campaigning began. Although Abdallah Kamal, the editor-in-chief of the paper, denied rumours that the paper was launched to defend the NDP's policies and promote Mubarak, Kamal himself is a member of the influential NDP's Policies Committee. The paper's columnists also include NDP bigwigs like Hossam Badrawi and Alieddin Hilal.
