What does all the talk about corruption within state-owned news organisations tell us about the condition of the press in Egypt, asks Fatemah Farag "Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be encouraged within these bounds, thus helping to establish these doctrines as the very condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing the belief that freedom reigns." Noam Chomsky's explanation of the workings of the media as a tool of propaganda in democratic societies is well worth considering as the spate of "revelations" regarding corruption within the state-owned media spirals. Mustafa Bakri, editor-in-chief of the privately-owned Al-Osbou' newspaper, has spearheaded a media campaign -- along with Adel Hammouda, editor-in-chief of the newly-opened privately- owned paper Al-Fagr and others -- against recently ousted chairmen of the board and chief editors including the former head of Dar Al-Tahrir, Samir Ragab, Al-Ahram 's Ibrahim Nafie, Akhbar Al-Yom 's Ibrahim Seada and Rose El-Youssef 's Mohamed Abdel-Moneim. Bakri claims to be in possession of documents that substantiate his allegations of a range of corrupt practices that run from nepotism to illegal financial transactions that have siphoned off millions and millions of pounds. Many of the counts of alleged corruption are so blatant as to verge on the farcical. The former editor-in-chief of Rose El-Youssef is accused of creaming off 75 per cent of an advertisement placed by a five-star restaurant, consuming his commission in the form of free meals amounting to LE5,000 a week. Samir Ragab, former editor- in-chief of Al-Gomhouriya, is said to have built himself a palatial office at the new Gomhouriya building replete with jacuzzi and chandeliers while Nafie is accused of using insider information to make over a billion pounds for his sons in a recent land deal. Nafie has publicly denied the accusations and called on the prosecutor-general to investigate the matter while Al-Ahram took the unusual step of publishing a front page announcement two weeks ago insisting all was well within the institution. Yet the corridors of the flagship headquarters of any national paper are rife with rumours of vast sums embezzled and forced arrangements to have at least part of the money returned. The administrative shake-ups that followed in the wake of newly-appointed boards at national newspapers have added fuel to the fire. Few would deny the need to take action in the face of these accusations of corruption and mismanagement; a more interesting consideration, however, is their timing and motive. Ahmed El-Naggar, a researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, has spent years documenting corruption within the state bureaucracy. "Before the removal of [the media bigwigs] I wrote detailing forms of corruption within the state-owned media and other state-owned enterprises. When I published my findings no one took me to court for libel, but then nor was anyone involved in the corruption ever held accountable." Some argue that Bakri, who is standing for chairman in the upcoming Press Syndicate elections, is using the anti-corruption campaign to win over Al-Ahram employees, the syndicate's largest voting bloc. Others, though, say this is too narrow an interpretation. They point out that corruption has become so pervasive an issue that it is topping far more than the Press Syndicate's agenda. "There is an attempt by the regime to say Mubarak's fifth republic will be better than the last four and some symbols of the regime may be sacrificed to create the illusion that they are cracking down on corruption," says Khaled El-Sirgani, media specialist at Al-Ahram and a columnist for the privately-owned Al-Dostour weekly newspaper. Whatever the motives, most commentators agree that there is little point in pursuing administrative reform within the state-owned press without also reforming editorial practices. According to El-Naggar, who has filed a complaint signed by 49 employees of Al-Ahram with the prosecutor- general requesting the investigation of corruption within the organisation, administrative reform must go hand-in-hand with editorial reform. "It is a catastrophe when the ceiling on freedom in society becomes higher than that expressed in the editorial policy of the public-owned media." El-Sirgani points out that "these institutions have become bureaucracies and journalists have become government clerks. Bureaucratic strata have been devised that do not exist in any news organisation in the West and as a result journalists are seeking promotion within the system. They pursue job titles rather than a good story." The situation is compounded, according to El-Sirgani, by employment strategies within the state-owned press. "Increasingly appointment choices have nothing to do with merit but with wasta (nepotism). If you have a big wasta you get into Al-Ahram, less then Al-Akhbar. The least powerful go to Al-Gomhouriya. "Once there were professionals and wasta employees, the former covering up for the latter. But now the latter form the majority, which explains the decline in the quality of the state-owned newspapers." El-Sirgani claims that there are high-ranking journalists within the state-owned press incapable of writing a grammatically correct sentence. One consequence of this is that as the margins of press freedom have expanded it is the privately- owned media that has taken the lead in exploiting the new opportunities. "It seems the policy of state-owned newspapers is to remain mouthpieces of the regime -- their editor-in-chiefs concerned primarily with their personal proximity to the powers that be," says El-Naggar, who claims this state of affairs "has resulted in public revulsion". "Any state-owned paper takes a maximum of five minutes to read while the private press is full of controversial issues and provocative columns." So much so, says El-Sirgani, that since the national press's abysmal coverage of the presidential elections, one paper's daily circulation has gone down by 150,000. At the heart of the matter is ownership of the media. As long as the state owns these media organisations, it is argued, then it is improper for the editor-in-chief to be effectively appointed by the president. Many point to the BBC or National Public Radio in the US, which though publicly funded, are run by independent boards. "These [ Ahram, Akhbar and Gomhouriya ] are by definition national papers, which means they are obliged to reflect the diversity that exists within society," explains El-Sirgani. "For the editor-in-chief to fulfill that mandate he should be elected and not appointed." While privatisation of the public media has been discussed as a possible solution -- some even claim the anti-corruption campaign has been orchestrated to pave the way to privatising the three state-owned media giants -- El-Sirgani and El-Naggar believe ownership by the employees of these organisations is a more practical solution. "When the media was privatised in Eastern Europe it was bought by the mafia and today serves as the mouthpiece of the mafia," explains El-Naggar. "I do not think that is what Egypt needs to move forward to."
