Basma Eletreby
900071277
Dr. Kim Fox
JRMC 202
Story Corp
Interviewer: I'm Basma Eletreby. Today I'll be talking to Dr. Mohamed Selim, a
professor, uh, in The American University in Cairo of Mass Comm. and Journalism, uhh,
about the revolution and the effects of media on the the revolution.
Uh, We have seen, of course, the, how the local channels covered the revolution, before
the system was overthrown, and we have seen how biased they were, but now that we no
longer have the the ministry of information, how do you think this will affect the the
coverage of news?
Interviewee: Well, I think right now we no longer has, no longer have a certain
system that can monitor, that can dictate what should appear, what should not appear on
television, radio, and hopefully on the press as well, um, the media channels and
networks will focus more on what the people need, on their own daily activities, on their
own tribulations, on their own concerns, will make sure that what will be reported will
really reflect the government, umm, the governmental tactics, and how would those
governmental tactics will be tested by the people directly, without any filtering, hopefully
this would be the situation. How will people react to that new situation, this will be the
concern in the coming year, maybe more than one year, maybe five years. How will they,
for the first time, make sure that the media is free, the media channels really reflect them,
it's not again reflecting the regime or governmental policies anymore, the media is owned
by them, media channels are owned by them, and is directed to them, hopefully they can
understand the situation that we are, that we are living right now.
Interviewer: uh, I have a difficulty understanding who's owning the media right
now and who's controlling it, so can you clarify on this?
Interviewee: Certainly, till this moment it's owned by the, if we talk about
television and radio, it's owned by the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, which is
headed currently by Al-Luwaa Tarek Mahdy, who used to be the head of the Egyptian
Air Force. He has been appointed by the Supreme Armed Forces Council to oversee and
monitor the day to day activities of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, so till this
moment, it's owned by the current interim Supreme Armed Forces Council. If you get to
the press, it's still owned by the prime ministerial office, which is headed by Dr. Essam
Sharaf, and the one who's having the portfolios of the press is Dr. Yehia Al Gamal, right.
For the coming intern period, the structure of ownership is still not yet clear; will it get
back to the people directly? will be another entity that can mirror the Ministry of
Information? or it will it be owned by the people? if there will be a certain IPO, initial
public offering, people will have shares in the governmental newspapers, in the
governmental channels, in the governmental radio channels. How it will be, umm,
restructured, that's what many people are trying to focus on. How can we restructure the
channels that were under the espouses of the ministry of Information, so in the coming
six months, it's gonna be a hazy period, it's gonna be very blurry, how things will go, but
we can see that many of the opposed figures, who couldn't have never appear on
Egyptian television are back on Egyptian television. The same in the press, for the first
time Al-Ahram would conduct a press interview with a member of the outlawed,
formerly outlawed, Muslim Brotherhood. Yesterday, Khayrat Al Shater, the second man
in command in the Muslim Brotherhood appeared on a private channel, which is Dream
who has a highest viewer ship compared to the other programs at the same time, so think
of that way, how we have seen something very new, right, that we can easily access
information not online or not on Facebook or Twitter but we get information from what
we can easily rely on to get the accurate information.
Interviewer: Do you think it's easy for people to trust these channels again?
Interviewee: It will take time.
Interviewer: It will take time?
Interviewee: It will take a long period of time .
Interviewer: And can, can they restore their, uh, reputation and credibility with
the same broadcasters? With the same people who were..
Interviewee: There must be a reshuffle, of course, because right now I have a
certain , uh, memory that those people who have been rebuking the protesters, who have
been calling them insurgents, who have been calling them outlaws, right now they call
them the revolutionaries, the crème of the cup of the Egyptians, in a matter of two to
three weeks , so how would I trust a certain figure if he was saying something and then
after a while he's saying something totally different, 180 degrees, so right now, a
reshuffle is needed, but what about if a person who has a popularity, one way or another ,
he is known of his own provocative way of getting the information from the interviewee ,
right, that person is important for the broadcast system itself, so if you're gonna change
his own way of dealing, right, this might be useful but he's gonna focus on the ways he
has been used before, pre-revolution, the time of Mubarak, maybe more earlier than that,
so I think that he would be outdated, right, people won't listen to him again, people won't
tune to his own channel again.
Interviewer: Okay, what do you think about the documents that were taken from
the security offices, the state security offices, do you think that there is a place for a
conspiracy theory?
Interviewee: Well, in the current moment still, again very blurry. How would you
know? How would you link the leaking of those documents to a conspiracy theory, and
by whom? And who would benefit out of that? Out of that chaos and out of the
slandering and defamation of reputations all over Egypt right now? Right. There is a leak,
nobody can deny that, and there was an attempt before the leak to burn and um mutilate
those documents, right, but the Egyptian revolutionaries went there and got those leaks
themselves, so it was done by hand; it was done by force, right. Egyptians protesters went
there and got it themselves, right, so they think that they have already burnt the important
documents before, maybe at the time of Mubarak and they have leaked those documents
for us to be distracted, well, my own take, right, that nothing will be done haphazardly in
this country. Everything is very much controlled, not by the ministry of information but
the supreme.. By the Supreme council of armed forces, they know what exactly is needed
in the current moment, they wanna take the government to the constitutional referendum
and afterwards to the parliamentary elections and then the presidential elections. This is
their own attempt right now, they don't mean, they don't need anymore protests , they
need to make sure protests will be postponed for a longer period of time , after that what
will happen , I'm not sure .
Interviewer: But can we then blame them for arranging this?
Interviewee: We can't blame them, but we can ask for more , as we can say,
communicates from them to explain to the people , to the Egyptian public and abroad
what exactly is happening , who's in control of the ministry of interior? Right. Will the
state security be restructured and reshuffled, or is it gonna be remain, remaining as it is?
So we need to understand, this moment lots of questions happening since Friday
afternoon in Alexandria and we haven't seen one (communiqué) from the Armed Forces
let one that stated that if you have any documents, please return them back to the
prosecutor general, right. So, this is very, as we can say, not as expected from the
supreme armed of, armed forces in that critical period of time.
Short pause.
Interviewer: Okay do you think that the media played a role in making this
revolution what it is, what it was? In making it succeed?
Interviewee: It's a media revolution, pre, within, and after, and it's still a media
revolution.
Interviewer: So what kind of role did it, did the media play? Especially that we
had like two days of complete blockage of everything.
Interviewee: Well, I beg to differ with "everything". There was a blockage of the
internet and cell phones, but satellite stations were on, you can get the information from
Al-Jazera, from Alarabia, from Al-Jazera English. People were informed, plus people
went to the streets and they relied on the older form of communication, face to face. I'd
get the information by myself and then I will get back and I will call and I will let people
know what exactly is happening, right , so the blockage of the internet really affected
people, but it stirred them to get into the streets and they were eye witnesses
Interviewer: yes, okay, where do you see, where do you think we are now and
where do you think we're going?
Interviewee: Critical stage that needs wisdom, that needs courage to put on to
what exactly we've seen, we need right now the older folks, the intellectuals the wise men
to speak up not o t to stay reticent anymore, to let the people know what exactly is needed
the current moment especially before the referendum, alright, to tell them shall we vote
yes or no, why yes and why no. We need to understand what will happen next; we need
to make sure that we are one people. We're not Muslims nor Christians, we're not Ahly
nor Zamalek , we're not upper class lower class, we are one nation. When the police
evacuated the streets it, affected all Egypt, all Egyptians, all status, all classes, so it would
never affect one nor the other so we need to make sure that we can rebuild our country
once again, that we can maintain safety again. This is the critical mass that we need right
now , that many people who can easily understand, will be building , not staying at the
couch tuning across different channels.
Interviewer: Uhh, I have a question that it, it is a wonder for me personally. We
don't have pressure groups, we don't really have political..
Interviewee: (interrupting) lobbies.
Interviewer: Yeah exactly, so if people want to convey their opinions, and the
armed forces wants no longer protests , so how can people convey their demands
Interviewee: Use social media. Use social media, use Twitter, Facebook. Again,
right now we need to evacuate the streets for a while. We need to evacuate Tahrir for a
while , not, not saying forever, right, Tahrir square will be there, if something that will go
along our revolution amendments , or the revolutions calls, we will get back to Tahrir
square and other squares all over Egypt, but for the time being, we need to get back,
relax, read, listen and understand, this is very important. We need to get back to our own
bases just for a while, call it a hiatus. call it a break , but a break not to forget about
everything, we need just to open up our eyes, be inquisitive , ponder, mull the situation so
that when we get to the coming phase the coming step or action , action, we can easily
understand, will it be the right one or not , right, but being in the street will deploy and
deplete our efforts , right. This is one, secondly, if we have something that will go against
the main stream , voice it out use Twitter, Facebook use the regular old way of sending
emails , right.
Interviewer: Do you think this is really effective, like do you think that the the
Armed Forces are, will be responsive to this?
Interviewee: If it wasn't responsive, they would never have initiated their own
Facebook page. The same with Essam Sharaf, the n, the currently PM designate, he has
his own page and he has his twitter account just two days ago, so right now, they know
that this is the way to, through which they can reach us, and we can reach them through
those pages for the time being. By the way, the revolution started on Facebbok, the
revolution started on Twitter. Before January the 25th, nobody would have ever told you
that this will be the situation two months later, right, so it started there. Right now, we
need to keep the pressure, we need to keep our voices up, but not in the streets for a
while, right. Till we make sure that we're on the right track. For the time being, keep the
pressure up virtually and then, if things didn't go as we are, we'll get back to the streets.
Interviewer: Okay, what's your take on the constitution amendments? There is
this referendum on the nineteenth of March, so what's your take on this, do we need a
new, a brand new constitution, or can we just settle for the amendments of the old one?
Interviewee: I'm not an, a constitutional expert, but from what I understand and
learn that a revolution that comes and topples a regime, it topples everything that is
associated with that regime, so if you're gonna amend one article and the second article
and the third article and leave two hundred and , for instance, eight articles, the
constitution all in all is two hundred and eleven articles, so why did you pick those ten
and did not pick articlen umber two and one and three and four, and the others? Right.
Plus, the person who initiated those articles to be amend was former president Mubarak.
He was the first one who called another group of experts , constitution experts to let them
start thinking how can we uh, amend, how can we change, how can we make sure that
those articles that are causing a lot of struggle can be changed , right. What we need right
now is go to the referendum, if you believe that this constitution should be changed
forever , right, completely, that we need to build and write a new one, say no. If you think
that this would be the right thing to do right now say yes and then, the people will speak.
Interviewer: Thank you Dr. Selim, this was a pleasure, uh, and with you was
Basma Eletreby, thank you.
Interviewee: Thank you.