CAIRO: A group of activists, journalists and intellects announced Thursday an initiative to set up an independent TV channel through an initial public offering (IPO), in a bid to mitigate the influence of businessmen and state institutions.
"Our initiative guarantees no business monopoly over the editorial policies of the channel. It also guarantees professionalism and full transparency of the content and the finances of the channel," said one of the founding members, novelist and columnist Belal Fadl, at a press conference Thursday.
"We do not intend to impose a certain view of how the channel will operate, since we are still in the preparation phase, not the establishment phase," he said.
Some of the current stars of TV talk shows, including, Yosri Fouda, Mahmoud Saad and Mona El-Shazly, volunteered to contribute, he added. Fouda is also listed a co-founder of the initiative.
"This does not necessarily mean that these faces will appear on the channel, but they will help,” explained Fadl, who had quit a TV show he was presenting on Tahrir TV earlier this month. As soon as the project is strong enough to stand on its own, the co-founders will quit their roles as supervisors of the channel, he added.
The initiative came to being after ONTV anchor Fouda decided to indefinitely suspend his TV show "Akher Kalam" (Final Word), an episode in which he was planning to host outspoken critic novelist Alaa Al-Aswany was canceled.
A day earlier, on Oct. 20, Fouda had apologized for canceling an episode in which he planned to analyze the televised interview of two members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) aired the previous night and hosted by El-Shazly and Ibrahim Eissa on Dream TV and Tahrir TV simultaneously.
"The initiative is a base to create a new media institution that represents three major components: guaranteeing a pure Egyptian nationalist approach, initiating a new style of ownership through the IPO," said researcher Mostafa Hegazy.
"The third component is guaranteeing professionalism, which does not mean presenting the two points of view in a rigid way, but rather representing the two sides in a fresh, revolutionary way," he added.
Many fear that the channel may face a licensing problem as the government had declared in September that approvals of new channels would be halted.
"The only obstacle that will face such an initiative is licensing," deputy director of the Egyptian Center for Human Rights Studies, Ziad Abdel-Tawab, previously told Daily News Egypt.
"The Egyptian authorities will refuse to issue a license for such a channel as other independent channels like Tahrir TV channel is not yet licensed and Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr was shut down," he added.
Abdel-Tawab argued that authorities refuse the existence of independent media that is beyond the reach of state supervision and intervention.
Any legal action against the authorities is "extremely difficult as they pressure individuals through phone calls and verbal threats which are extremely difficult to prove legally," he added.
In case of licensing problems, Fadl said they would resort to a policy of imposing a new reality. Members of the SCAF “said in their last televised interview that Egyptians need to engage more. Ok, now we are engaging through delivering our voice via a public TV channel.
"If our engagement is rejected, then we will be back to the streets to show another form of engagement," he added.
Journalist and co-founder Asaad Taha explained that the channel’s format of public ownership will protect it from any kind of state intervention.
"The channel will not represent a certain businessman or authority that could be easily targeted by the authorities," he said.
Fadl asserted that during his work in many TV channels, direct intervention or threats by the authorities were rare.
"I have never received a phone call from someone in any authority telling us what we should say and what we should not say. It is mostly a form of self-censorship by the channel’s owners who are afraid that their interests may be affected by an outspoken tone," he explained.
Journalist and co-founder Yasser El-Zayat said that the initiative will be the cornerstone of a larger media institution that would offer new content with a new vision.
"The project may extend to a newspaper, a public radio or even a website, all possibilities are open," El-Zayat added.
