Journalism differences

Yesterday’s visit to Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies sparked an intense curiosity on my part for reporting in Egypt. Obviously since I’m here, I’ve already expressed curiosity. But what really piqued my interest was the idea of Egyptian media being less sophisticated. So much so that certain longstanding staples of American journalism – protecting sources and vigorously verifying information for instance – don’t apply. 

According to the Dina and Hannah, who spoke with us, that is because the media is not sophisticated enough to use anonymous sources, and the standards are not at the same professional level as they are in America, where good journalists cannot just print hearsay. “You have to unlearn what you know” to understand how it works here, they told us.

So with that said, I took a look at Al-Ahram Weekly online. One article, found here, was about President Hosni Mubarak’s and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ upcoming visit to Washington. It didn’t strike me as unprofessional by any means. Most of the story was written using statements from various officials, but once in a while that is necessary. There were a few wording choices I wouldn’t have used, but I thought the article was, overall, journalistically acceptable.

There was frequent use of anonymous sources – something increasingly less acceptable in American journalism. It was in the capacity that was explained to us – they don’t use the word “anonymous” at all. They just sort of avoid saying it. Here’s an example:

“Egyptian officials remain hesitant. According to one Egyptian diplomat, ‘the Americans seem to be aware that they need to be careful, but they also seem very keen on this dialogue because they believe that engaging Iran could help stabilise the situation in Iraq as the US pulls out its troops this year. The Americans are also keen to have a positive Iranian influence in Lebanon, on the eve of legislative elections, and in Afghanistan that is faced with increasing instability.’”

Another story I looked at, found here, was about the governement-ordered pig slaughters in Egypt, required partially because of the swine flu (even though there have been no recorded casese of the swine flu here). I felt this article displayed a good attempt at balancing the issue, giving details about the slaughterhouses and offered compensation.

“‘We work and then they come and cut off our livelihood. The pigs don’t have any disease. Take samples from the pigs and if they test positive we would happily see them culled,’ Manshiet Nasser pig breeder Marzouk Adli said after the clashes, complaining also that the compensation offered was inadequate,” the article says.

However, I don’t think enough space in the article was given to showing the “other side.” The fact that pig farmers are the poor Christian minority who are largely marginalized here was not explored, which is a sophisticated angle to the story. The article was also way too long and could have been broken into multiple stories, if not just edited down. There were also too many details about the swine flu plopped on to the end.

From what I read, this newspaper isn’t unprofessional persay, it’s just not as sophisticated as many American papers. There may be more of a distinct difference with other papers, or maybe I just don’t have enough context to see the difference. Perhaps the difference lies in the reporting process and the journalistic mindset here, which hopefully will be evident when we meet with journalists here.