CAIRO: The Supreme Press Council issues a periodic report on the performance of the Egyptian press, whether national, partisan or independent. When I read the last report I felt a strange nostalgia for Her Majesty the Press, in whose court I worked my whole life. So I decided to call, but she didn’t answer. After investigating the situation, I learned that Her Majesty the Press no longer resides in Egypt.
“I heard that she is now in London, where some Arab newspapers have growing numbers of readers, thanks to their professionalism which the Egyptian press is lacking at present. Please, give me her telephone number there so I can contact her, I said to the man who told me the news.
“Don’t waste your energy, she won’t reply, he said.
“How? Her real place is here where she was born in the early 19th century. Generations of journalists, who influenced the Arab press, have emerged from Egypt, such as Omar Makram, Rafe’a Rafi’ Al-Tahtawi, Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad, Taha Hussein, Mohammad Al-Tabei, Mustafa and Ali Amin, and Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, I said. “How can she leave her home here and go to this cold exile. Please, give me her telephone number. I can persuade her to come back. I can do it, at least for the 40 years I have spent in her profession and during which I reached the highest post in her court – that of editor-in-chief.
“Don’t you ever tell her you’re a chief editor, otherwise she’ll hang up immediately. She can no longer tolerate editors, who she says are the cause of the scourge that has struck the Egyptian press. The least that can be said about them is that they’re not even polite.
“Let me try, she should return, I said.
“She can only come back when freedom from defamation and insults in the name of so-called freedom of the press, ends completely. Before the advent of this freedom, some Egyptian newspapers were deeped among the best in the world. Now I’m looking unabashed at what the press is publishing, even in headlines, he said.
“What is published by our press these days has nothing to do with freedom of the press and the status our newspapers used to have among the leading world newspapers has nothing to do with the absence of this freedom.
“It is a completely professional issue. There were professional rules and ethical considerations, but now these rules and ethics are no longer present. They will only come back when Her Majesty returns to her original home here in Egypt where she had started and is still the home for the oldest media foundations in the region. Some of them are older than some neighboring states, I answered.
“You confuse the cause with the effect. These deteriorating conditions led Her Majesty to leave the country, not vice versa. Don’t say that the journalists’ conditions have deteriorated due to the absence of Her Majesty and that her return would reform the country. But rather say reforming the conditions of the newspapers will convince her to come back, he said.
“Let’s not engage in futile discussions. All I’m saying is that Her Majesty was born here and this is her home and hence her absence is unnatural. I’ll do my best to persuade her to return, if only you could help me contact her.
“Sir, the issue is not a question of persuasion, he said, “it is that the laws of this profession itself do not allow the presence of Her Majesty amid the vulgarity that has become material for you to make stories and headlines. Every creature can only survive in a specific environment. If this changes the creature migrates to another environment or dies and becomes extinct.
“We’re lucky that there are still other environments that are conducive to a healthy press. All you can do is look at some of the Arab newspapers published abroad, as their distribution is higher than any Egyptian newspaper. This is simply because instead of wasting time in hunting scandals and leveling accusations and insults they provide a good service to the reader and respect his mentality. They inform the reader of what is going on in the world through news stories, features, analyses and commentaries.
“But it used to be this way here, I said, “and it will return if she comes back.
“Oh!! You’re stubborn and you don’t want to understand, he said.
“And you’re biased, hateful and ignorant, too, he continued. “Didn’t I tell you that editors nowadays are not even polite?
Mohamed Salmawyis President of the Arab Writers’ Union and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo.
