What does this week's high-profile resignation of Akhbar Al-Youm Editor-in-Chief reveal about the state of the Egyptian press? Omayma Abdel-Latif seeks answers Al-Ahram Board Chairman and Editor-in- Chief Ibrahim Nafie makes no secret of the fact that changes in the upper echelons of the Egyptian press are imminent. "We know it's bound to happen anytime," he says. For Nafie, however, the changes should not just be a "question of different faces and names; it should go beyond this to the larger issue of the Egyptian press's future in general". Nafie's comments to Al-Ahram Weekly came on the heels of a surprise move by Akhbar Al-Youm Board Chairman and Editor-in-Chief , who announced his resignation in an editorial that ran on the Saturday paper's front page. In it, Seada lashed out at state officials like Safwat El-Sherif who, as head of the Shura Council, also chairs the Supreme Press Council to which state-run media organisations like Akhbar Al-Youm and Al-Ahram report. "I don't understand why the head of the Shura Council doesn't hold a press conference to clear the air and respond to the rumours and lies about the changes" that everyone is saying are going to take place, an angry Seada wrote. For the past few weeks, Seada and Nafie, along with editors like Samir Ragab of Dar Al-Tahrir and Makram Mohamed Ahmed of Dar Al-Hilal , have been at the heart of an avalanche of reports in the mostly independent press claiming their removal was long overdue. In Nafie's words, this "vile campaign" portrayed them as "a corrupt gang that should be removed immediately". Newspapers like Sawt Al-Umma, Al-Osboua and Al-Dostour have been decrying the editors' -- all of whom are over 65 years old -- staying in their posts past the standard age of retirement as "illegal". They have also been suggesting potential successors. In Sawt Al-Umma, for instance, a lengthy feature claimed that El-Sherif had phoned some of the editors "to convey the political leadership's appreciation for their prior efforts, while breaking the bad news that the time had come for them to step down". These types of reports have neither been confirmed nor denied by El-Sherif. It was precisely this "official silence" that triggered Seada's move. These kinds of rumours and reports had catalysed an "extremely dangerous" situation within the state- affiliated press, he wrote. "The Supreme Press Council now has the responsibility to prevent a state of chaos that might threaten the security and stability of these papers." Dar Al-Hilal Chairman Makram Mohamed Ahmed said "Seada was right to do what he did." Ahmed has also asked the Shura Council to absolve him of his responsibilities. "We understand that our situation is extra-legal, but the manner in which the entire issue has been handled by both the state and the independent press has been extremely humiliating, and has only succeeded in creating a state of total confusion and chaos," he said. Seada's move, however, drew mixed reactions. El-Sherif, for one, finally spoke up. In a televised interview, he said the editors had been kept on board because "Egypt's national interests required that they remain in their positions. The board chairmen and editors did not impose themselves on anyone. They stayed on because the Shura Council decided that domestic and regional political developments required stability on that front." The editors would stay where they were, El-Sherif said, until the selection process for new candidates was through. Seada's resignation was "only a symptom of the acute crisis afflicting the state-affiliated press in particular, and the Egyptian press in general," said Nabil Zaki, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahali newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Tagammu Party. Zaki told the Weekly that the issue is more about the ownership of these papers than anything else. Nafie agrees. "The real issue here has to do with the kind of law governing this country's press, and the form of ownership we should seek. Should they remain fully state-owned; should they incorporate some form of mixed ownership; or should we privatise?" Nafie asked. "Some people simply don't understand the tremendous complexities involved in talking about changing leadership positions in these papers. They don't realise that some of these papers have become empires in terms of their financial capabilities, the size of their staff, and the intellectual capital they own." As such, Nafie said, any reform process needed to start with the underlying laws governing the press. The current law regulating the press was issued in the early 1960s; it placed the ownership of the press in the hands of what was then the country's sole political party, The National Union, which later evolved into The Arab Socialist Union. When President Anwar El-Sadat introduced a multi-party system in the late seventies, the Shura Council -- set up as a consultative upper house of parliament -- inherited nominal ownership of the state- affiliated press. According to the law, appointing the board chairmen of state-affiliated newspapers is the exclusive authority of the Shura Council; these appointments have traditionally been political in nature. The press debate also appears to be intrinsically related to the larger issue of Egyptian democracy and reform. "For Egypt to be a truly democratic state, a free press should undoubtedly be part of the deal," said Osama El-Ghazali Harb, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) powerful Policy Secretariat and the editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram's Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya magazine. "In a democracy, the state cannot appoint the chairman of the board of a press organisation. There is something wrong with the whole system. We have to revise the way these papers are being run, and the criteria upon which board chairmen are selected," Harb said. The fact that the selection process has always excluded those most concerned -- namely the journalists working for these organisations themselves -- is a definite sore spot. "In this day and age, it is impossible for the state or the political leadership to impose an editor without taking journalists' views into consideration," Zaki said. "Any appointment without a consensus will create chaos, and things will quickly spin out of control." In fact, at one of these papers, when the name of a controversial figure began being bandied about as a possible candidate for the top job, a number of journalists began signing and circulating petitions against him. Seada's resignation also seems to have exposed what many are describing as a larger power struggle between the NDP's old and new guard. Zaki believes the resignation was closely connected to what he described as a conflict between El-Sherif and other old guarders, on the one hand, and circles close to Gamal Mubarak, the president's son and head of the NDP's Policy Secretariat. "With two points of view currently dominating the nation's ruling elite, it has become clear that each side is using all possible weapons to place its own people at the helms of the state- affiliated papers," Zaki said. "This conflict has now come out into the open, and the press as a whole is paying the price." According to Zaki, the delay in naming new bosses has more to do with the fact that Egypt is on the threshold of presidential elections. There is a palpable fear, he said, that changing things now might create a state of chaos. He also cited a lack of potential replacements who could run the papers efficiently, and accommodate the concerns of the political class at the same time. Nafie, however, does not subscribe to the old guard versus new guard argument. His view is that "issues of press regulation and reform are not even on the agenda." Although changes do need to take place, he said, the most important question is not when, but how. "The process of change should be governed by certain rules, and those rules should eventually answer the larger question about the type of future we want for Egypt's press. And whether or not replacing seven old editors with seven new editors will solve the press's problems."
