CAIRO: How far can you push the limit, testing authorities’ tolerance to the freedom of expression you are demonstrating? No one can answer this question better than Amr Adib; because for the past six years he has been testing the limits on air.
“Freedom is hard-pressed. Meaning, it is acquired, it is not bestowed, says Adib, the charismatic TV host of Orbit’s most popular daily talk show, El Qahira El Youm (Cairo Today). “It’s like when you go swimming in a pool. You keep walking, feeling the ground with your feet to see how deep it is. Until you find no ground at all and you realize that you have to start swimming and exert a bit of effort.
Over the past couple of months El Qahira El Youm has featured on-air accusations of fraud between competing parliamentary candidates and judges shedding doubts on the integrity of the electoral process.Rumors circulated that the program might be pulled off air, but it wasn’t.
The boundaries were pushed a little further.
Adib acknowledged the general rise in tolerance, which he attributed to several political and economical factors including “the transformation that is taking place around us in the Middle East, in Egyptian society, inside the authority itself and [our] economic changes – the growth of businessmen who try to have a say and try to speak up.
On the TV side El Qahira El Youm doesn’t take all the credit in resetting the boundaries of freedom.TV and film critic Atef Soliman says that El Qahira El Youm has helped test the limits. “We are now witnessing a spurt in the freedom of introducing [topics], he says.
Adib agrees as he credits his media counterparts and significant legal changes. “We have to credit people like Emad El Din Adib [Amr’s older brother and media guru], who pushed hard in the talk show [genre]. We have to credit a channel like Al Jazeera .We have to credit article 76 [of the constitution], despite the many reservations I have about it.We have to credit what is called independent press.
“A year ago, for example,we couldn’t have talked about rotation of power in Egypt. Adib says, stressing the level of self and internal censorship associated. On several occasions, he felt that he had crossed the line and decided to tone it down the next day.
But there is more to it than worrying about the government.
“I am not an activist, I am a media person, he says, referring to the entertainment aspect of the show and the fact that it is featured on a subscription- only network. If viewers didn’t like the show, they cancel subscriptions, he explains.
Adib feels enormous responsibility for the content and its repercussions.
“It’s like the Alexandria events [violence occurred between Muslims and Copts last month due to a church-organized play that allegedly offended Muslims].We were the first program to [report] the Alexandria events and what was happening, he says.
“I could have gone into detail. I could have shown the play. I could have set everything on fire, he says.”The balance then doesn’t have right or wrong. Adib decided to explain what the play was about without showing it.
Viewers are more than appreciative. Watching El Qahira El Youm has turned into a mass addiction. Often, the issues the program initiates or discusses are reported in newspapers the following day.Whether it is because the show never misses a significant event during the day, offers open discussions on a variety of topics including social and political taboos, or has a daring approach isn’t quite clear.
The program was the first Arab talk show to be aired live on a daily basis.
During the early years,Adib struggled for recognition among viewers and potential guests. First he had to establish the genre.Then he had to prove himself. “I spent a long time, during which people saw me as a stupid presenter, mentally retarded and whose program would be a disgrace for anyone to appear on.
After a lengthy period of strenuous work (three hours of live broadcast a day for six years),Adib has become one of most known faces on the Arab media scene. As for the program, other channels started copying its successful formula, most notably Egyptian TV’s El Beit Beitak.
Today Adib’s counterparts and competitors express their respect. “Amr Adib is the best TV host in the Arab world, says renowned journalist and TV host Mahmoud Saad,who is now working with El Beit Beitak on a regular basis.
“Whether it is intelligence, presence or courage, Adib has all the features that qualify him to be where he is, Saad added.
There is also criticism. Sherif Awad, media critic, says Adib “doesn’t fit the profile of a TV host. Awad described Adib as loud, always shouting at people.”He believes he is an expert on everything, says Awad, dryly.
Regardless of this mix of praise and criticism, Adib is now comfortably sitting in a prominent spot in Arab media. He attributes his program’s success to the types of topics addressed and its approach. “But what is more important is how sincere you are in what you do. We don’t fool anyone. I don’t say that other programs [do so]. But in El Qahira El Youm we are used to telling people the truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth. Even if it is painful, even if it could harm us, even if it could upset anyone, he says.
While the difference in the type of freedom allowed to El Qahira El Youm and to the state-run El Beit Beitak remains the key issue in comparing the two, Saad and Nirvana, Adib’s former partner who’s since moved to El Beit Beitak, pointed to the different types of audiences each program addresses. “Before [in Orbit] it was just the elite, now [in El Beit Beitak] it is everyone, Nirvana says, noting the diversity in the Egyptian viewers who tune to the terrestrial state TV.This diverse audience is not as tolerant to breaking religious, sexual and political taboos, she added.
Meanwhile,Adib’s pursuit of the truth had gained the respect of his guests. He can criticize someone but is able to invite him as a guest the next day. “People [guests] love to play the game. El Qahira El Youm has become a game . [It] has become like a roller coaster.
He noted that although people can now differentiate between playing the devil’s advocate and attacking a person in an interview, it can get lonely “You are not pleasing the National [Democratic] Party, the Brotherhood, El Tagammu, or El- Wafd.you don’t belong to anyone. the people are your only support.
Even viewers could turn against him.Venturing into social taboos, like marital infidelity, incites the anger of viewers and the public’s demands for censorship.Adib, however, says the trick is in the way the issue is presented, not the issue itself.
“I don’t have a problem if someone differs with my opinion. But I care if someone has a problem in my performance. Disagree with me as much as you like, but I care that you see that it was a good episode, he says.
His non-compromising attitude in media professionalism can affect his popularity.While testing Radio Star contestants (a competition to find new hosts for Nugoum FM, for which Adib serves as managing director), the seasoned TV host was considered too tough.
Ayat Abu Basha, one of the contestants who made it to the five finalists, described Adib as provocative. She says sometimes he was “too tough and rude but she repeatedly stressed that he “was always very fair. She added that those who had a problem with his attitude couldn’t answer the simplest of questions.
“I can’t employ a radio host who doesn’t know when the 6th of October [war] was. I can’t employ a radio host who doesn’t read the newspapers in the morning. I wasn’t asking them about the birth date of Descartes, Adib says with a rising tone of anger in his voice.
His toughness has not affected his popularity. Even during the furor over the surprise ‘departure’ of his co-host, Nirvana, Adib’s popularity, and that of the program, remained intact.
“Nirvana didn’t leave. She even said so in the newspapers. The Orbit administration asked her to leave El Qahira El Youm, because Nirvana reached a point where she had a problem with peopl
e . we’ve reached a point where the difference is not [professional.] It reached the point where you had people who can’t stand working with each other.
Nirvana tells another story. She says she was surprised by what she calls an unjustified attack by her colleagues in the network, following the program’s coverage of the presidential elections. Gradually her colleagues in El Qahira El Youm started attacking her. She described it as a ridiculous attempt by the network to push her into resigning, in which her colleagues were used as “tools.
Nirvana says she refused to rise to the bait and left it to the network to fire her,which eventually happened.But this didn’t undermine the importance of the six years she’d spent with El Qahira El Youm.
While popularity can be a fleeting thing,Adib will always have the support of two prominent media people: his wife,the renowned journalist Lamis El Hadidi and his brother Emad, in spite of their different approaches.
Hadid’s position on President Mubarak’s press campaign team could have made life especially exciting at home, but Abid says they always discuss matters through.
His relationship with his brother Emad El Din Adib, can be controversial: Amr speaks of his older brother with utmost respect and admiration,but can Amr’s success be traced back to his brother’s connections? “On the contrary, my problem . was having Emad El Din Adib as a brother.When I first started working, they said, ‘you’re no Emad.’
“I needed to make a lot of noise to appear beside Emad El Din Adib. According to Amr Adib, he enjoys a close relationship with his brother both on the personal and professional levels. Emad often calls to provide advice and necessary criticism or praise.
Adib shrugs off allegations of nepotism at Nile Radio – in which is brother Emad is a partner. “When they [founders Taher Helmy and Emad] looked around, they found me the most suitable one [for the job], he explained.
Amr Adib, it seems, is often the most suitable one for the job.
