Masry al Youm website, akhiran

The last two years President Mubarak have provided me with the birthday gifts, this year it´s masry al youm, whom finally decided to go cyber, after a year and a half. Hannah Allam of the knight ridder has a piece on what probably is the best daily newspaper in Egypt today. Congratulations to Hisham Qassem(i was a huge fan of Cairo Times), Magdi Mehanna and everybody else involved.

After President Mubaraks promise on the 23th of February 2004, there is a tiny opening in the media towards more freedom. Masry al youm has tapped in too that vacum, begining to fill it with a new standard of journalism, unprecedented after the 1952 revolution. There is also small cracks in the semiofficial press, altough as for now, mostly administrative in form. Hopefully in the near future we will see changes both in style and material. Egypt still has a long and winding road ahead from the routine newsreports of whom the president and the first lady recieved , and vaved goodbye on the tarmac of Cairo Internatinal Airport. This could symbolise the state of journalism in Egypt for the last 50 years.

The media coverage of the Presidential elections was undiscovered ground for egyptian journalists, It was substantially more free in terms of media access for the candidates, and masry al youm was first among equals in reporting on the election.

The promises President Mubarak pledged to, 24 months ago, and reiterated as part of his presidential election program, and in his first speech to parliament after elections in November-December, is still not in place, in contrast the hardcore facts facing journalists in Egypt since Mubaraks original promises two years ago tell us a differnt story. From the abduction of the editor of the Nasserist weekly, and Kifayya elder Abd Halim Qandil in November 2004, the sexual harrasment of women journalists during the May referendum, journalists covering the judges club meeting and parliament elections is all but a few exemples of the systematic problems facing Egyptian journalists and journalism in Egypt today, the latest incidents, the scandalous decision by the prosecutor not to prosecute in the case of black wednesday(the May referndum) and the one which involves journalists from Masry al youm,it prompted CPJ to write a letter of protest to the President.

Masry al youm, Egyptian media