The Egyptian public and cultural and academic circles concerned with the crucial issues and the future of their society have grown increasingly angry at the state of anarchy in the media. It has begun to threaten the security of society politically, culturally, economically and socially. Journalists and other media professionals share responsibility for the deterioration and the failure of the post-revolutionary military government and Muslim Brotherhood to manage the affairs of the nation. As has been scientifically and objectively established, the media reflects the state of society and does not operate independently of the economic and political system. It is a crucial leg of the golden triangle that also includes education and culture. Media completes and complements the strategic functions of education and culture to shape the collective mind and conscience. Unfortunately, this triangle does not receive the necessary degree of care and attention from political authorities. Education, as the cornerstone of shaping the collective mind and conscience, has suffered years of relentless deterioration, the drastic consequences of which have grown increasingly evident. Most schools and universities are no longer storehouses of knowledge, beacons of enlightenment and bulwarks of morals and value systems. Their flaws and deficiencies have become so severe as to jeopardise social cohesion now and well into the future. In like manner, Egyptian culture and its institutions and agencies, both governmental and nongovernmental, are in such administrative disarray that they are unable to perform their social functions. The fact is that the ruling authorities in the period following the January 2011 Revolution did not include education, culture and the media in their priorities, in spite of many rosy statements and promises on the part of political leaders. Nor has the current transitional period brought any serious attempts to change the educational-cultural-media system inherited from the Mubarak and Morsi regimes. Among the negative consequences of this is the professional and ethical deterioration of the media, the promoters and beneficiaries of which are obvious. The Egyptian media has become a battleground between powers of the state, which have been lax and negligent toward the instruments and practitioners of deeply rooted corruption, and the powers of business magnates, the private sector and publicity firms. This latter group of interests has benefitted from this failure and penetrated this sensitive domain, striving to secure a monopoly over the mechanisms it offers for shaping public opinion. In addition, wielding their economic might, they have taken advantage of rampant corruption in government bureaucracy to sideline the instruments of state influence in the realms of education, culture and the press. Just as food commodity tycoons control the price, availability and quality of the food of the Egyptian people, so too have business magnates and the private sector secured a monopoly on the intellectual and cultural sustenance of this patient people. The people and their political leaders are no longer able to restrain prices or the deterioration in quality, as a result of which education has become a commodity from which only the economically well off can benefit. In like manner, meat merchants invaded the realm of culture to “rescue” the cinema and theatre industries while other business magnates founded their own private satellite stations and newspapers that abide by no professional or ethical standards and principles. These media outlets have become the mouthpieces of the kings of the political, economic and cultural marketplace while the rights of broad sectors of the Egyptian people and all facets of social justice have been cast to the wind. The media of the businessmen (in the private sector) has become more widespread and has acquired a growing influence over public opinion while the influence of state-run media has receded. The trend has its origins in age-old causes to which were added other causes that arose in the period following the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, during the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and then the Muslim Brotherhood. In an attempt to perform the role required and expected from them, media professionals and journalists, in particular, have developed a draft law to reorganise their profession and purge it of the flaws that have undermined its functions and tarnished its reputation. Unfortunately, the government paid no attention to the legislative project at the right time and the state of the media deteriorated still further and its offences increased. Given that businessmen own most of the satellite TV stations and control their policies and performance, they are primarily responsible for the chaos and deterioration in the media. But by no means does this minimise the responsibility of the ruling authorities that have been too slow to produce laws and regulations to regulate the media. Although a proposal for a draft law for the regulation of the media was formulated by a committee made up of experts from the Journalists Syndicate, Supreme Press Council, Radio and Television Workers Syndicate and relevant academic circles, and a similar legislative proposal was prepared by a group of experts and media professionals selected by the Mahlab government several months before its departure, these efforts were never taken beyond the drawing board. Because of the government's failure to promulgate the legislation, the field has been left open to the excesses of the private-sector media, which have targeted most governmental and social practices in ways that lacked all objectivity, integrity and professionalism. The sole beneficiaries have been businessmen. In the context of this deterioration, we cannot turn a blind eye the many journalists and media professionals who were lured to private satellite TV stations with unimaginable salaries and perks. Nor can we ignore the many interlopers into the media who have also played a part in the erosion of the system of professional and ethical standards of the media and, more importantly, in the infringement on the Egyptian people's right to knowledge. Without a doubt, the post-January Revolution governments are responsible for the current plight of the media as they facilitated the establishment of dozens of private newspapers and satellite TV stations without scrutinising their sources of funding or management, with no presence of the Journalists Syndicate in the audio-visual media and without enforcing the provisions of the journalist and media code of ethics. Meanwhile, the state-run media were left to drown in their professional problems, accumulating debts and the professional and administrative pressures within various journalistic institutions. In addition to the absence of objective criteria for evaluating the professional performance of journalists, this sector has continued to lack enforcement of legislative guarantees on the professional protection of journalists, such as the law that stipulates the need to facilitate their access to sources of information. In spite of the mounting problems, there have been no attempts to develop the media and transform it into one that serves the public. On the contrary, successive governments, regardless of their political orientations, have used the press to promote their own policies and interests, a practice that has weakened the credibility of the state-run media among the general public and sapped its ability to compete with the privately owned media. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE: In view of Egypt's political and social circumstances five years after the January Revolution, there is a clear need to improve the state-run media and turn it from an authoritarian-oriented to a developmental-oriented media that puts public service at the top of its priorities. The private media must continue to thrive, of course, but in the framework of certain legal constraints regarding funding and professional principles. If the Egyptian media at present suffer from a lack of vision, the chief source of the current crisis is the lack of necessary political will for change. It also raises the question regarding the political and social allegiance of the ruling authority: does it belong to the vast majority of the people and is it truly committed to the rights and welfare of the struggling sectors of this society, or does it belong to the five per cent who have both wealth and influence? FUTURE SCENARIOS: A number of future scenarios can be discerned. The first is the perpetuation of the status quo, or of current practices in the educational, cultural and media triangle. This scenario can be ruled out on the grounds that it conflicts with the laws of change and evolution. However, it brings us to another scenario: reform. This could take the form of some readjustments in the political, economic and media sectors, but without impinging on the interests and privileges of the business magnates, thereby enabling ongoing tax evasion and lack of accountability for corruption except, perhaps, for a few isolated cases. This scenario is the most likely on the basis of our perception of the current outlooks and capacities of the authorities. The desired scenario, on the other hand, presumes the emergence of a genuine political will for change and for rectifying the country's political, economic, cultural and journalistic behaviour. Such a process entails putting into effect constitutional Articles 68, 70, 71 and 72 and the speedy promulgation of laws and regulations governing the media and the press in a manner consistent with the text and spirit of the 2014 Constitution. Such legislative activity will depend on the resolve of members of the elected parliament. In the meantime, until such changes are forthcoming, the question will remain as to the ability of the parliament and the executive authorities to enforce the abovementioned constitutional articles. Equally persistent will be the question of the ability of the Egyptian media to recover its ability to contribute to the dissemination and enhancement of the culture of enlightenment, the idea of comprehensive change, and the struggle for civil rights (freedom of thought and expression), political rights (effective participation in decision-making processes), cultural rights (freedom of creativity and the right to differ), social rights (the rights to education and healthcare) and communicative rights (the right to knowledge and to communicate). The writer is a veteran professor of journalism.
