ON THE FOURTH floor of the Al-Ahram building on El-Galaa Street, Osama Saraya sits in his predecessor’s lavish office. Sitting in more than 100 square meters of prime real estate, his desk is dominant. To his right stands a table with a massive flat-screen television and a handful of decoders. Behind him are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covering an entire wall.

The new editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram has been on the job barely two weeks at this point, tapped to head what is both the top state-owned daily and the nation’s largest newspaper of any kind in a shakeup that saw the long-serving heads of the country’s leading state-owned daily and weekly newspapers sent unceremoniously into retirement early last month.

“...my appointment was not because I am a strong supporter [of the regime], but because I have an independent personality.”

The move came amid rumors that at least two courts were about to issue orders stripping existing newspaper editors and chairmen of their posts for having worked past the mandatory retirement age of 65 for public servants. The Shura Council, the nation’s upper house of parliament, appointed new editors and chairmen of the board at Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al Gomhuria (the three top state-run dailies), as well as at Akhbar Al-Yom (the highly respected weekend edition of Al-Akhbar) and the political and intellectual weekly Rose Al-Youssef.

For the first time, the Shura Council split the roles of chairman of the board and editor-in-chief, effectively raising what journalists call a ‘Chinese wall’ between the business and editorial sides of the publishing ventures.

Saraya is adamant that he won his new position thanks to his commitment to his readers’ concerns and his wide net of connections, not to nepotism.

“I have been working with Al-Ahram for a long time. I’ve always kept an eye on public opinion. My relationship with journalists is very strong, and I was a member of the Press Syndicate’s board for 14 years. In addition, readers knew me through my magazine which was very successful,” says Saraya, referring to the pan-Arab weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, where he was editor-in-chief for eight years. “I also reached the public in a good way through my comments published in the press or broadcast on TV. Moreover, most officials know me. Generally speaking, I am known.”

Tara Todras-Whitehill Osama Saraya, new editor-in-chief at Al -Ahram

A member of the ruling National Democratic Party, Saraya has recently become one of the prominent (and outspoken) supporters of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime on a number of Arab satellite channels, but hotly dismisses claims that his NDP membership was a factor in his promotion.

“I want to say that my appointment was not because I am a strong supporter [of the regime], but because I have an independent personality,” says Saraya, who sits on a subcommittee of the NDP’s policy secretariat. (The secretariat itself is headed by Gamal Mubarak, son of the president and a rising political force in his own right.)

While his ties to government are strong, Saraya is adamant that he won’t be anyone’s lapdog.

“I used to criticize the delay of political and economic changes in Egypt, a situation that was addressed later on by the appointment of Ahmed Nazif’s government and the amendment of Article 76,” he says by way of example. “I called for these changes three years ago in Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, which had a critical voice.”

Saraya is similarly vehement as he tackles critics who have labeled the state-owned (or ‘national,’ as it is often called) press a government mouthpiece, insisting that the state press remains committed to expressing divergent views.

Mohsen Allam Momtaz El-Qot of Akhbar Al-Yom

“There is no limit on freedom at Akhbar Al-Yom ... [but] I do not want vulgarity in my paper.”

“The agenda of the national press is overloaded because people’s concerns are many,” he says. “As a big newspaper that expresses the concerns of all of Egyptian society, Al-Ahram cannot ignore things that happen in Egypt. The national press cannot focus on just one or two domestic issues. By contrast, the independent press has a slim and limited agenda. They can focus on one issue: [political] change. Consequently, the latter seems subversive to readers But the national press tackles the same things, expressing all political views, but without concentrating on just one issue,” Saraya explains.

Moreover, Saraya resents the opposition press’ unrelentingly critical stance as “depressing.”

“We want to benefit from freedom and use it in a way to serve the interests of the country,” announces Saraya. “We have had strong criticism in recent months which has depressed people and scared society. We do not want to frighten readers, especially now that Egypt is on the verge of a political and economic revival. We want the nation to move ahead toward evolution and development [with a positive outlook]. The media should change its critical language in order to make society aware of the achievements and the development that it is living through,” adds Saraya.

Over at Akhbar El-Yom, the nation’s top weekend paper, Saraya’s newly instated counterpart is Momtaz El-Qot, who couldn’t agree more when it comes to the opposition press’ “misuse of the concept of freedom of expression,” as he calls it.

“ They [national publications] should not just express the views of government officials That is illogical,”

“This is not freedom of expression, it’s chaos,” says El-Qot. “While we are calling for the abolition of the imprisonment sentence for journalists” — under current law, journalists found guilty of libel or slander, among other professional offenses, can find themselves behind bars after a criminal proceeding, not just fined for a civil offense as in most countries — “we see journalists attacking, insulting and disgracing people. When I accuse someone of robbery for instance, I should have the proof The president gave you the freedom to publish. However, you should write what you can be held accountable for. You must have documents or other proof,” El-Qot says. “They have to stop using this dirty language,” cries El-Qot.

Omar Mohsen Abdel Kader Shohaib, Dar El-Hilal chairman and editor-in-chief of Al-Mussawer magazine

(Although Mubarak has ordered the People’s Assembly to come up with new legislation decriminalizing libel and making it instead a civil offense, parliament has yet to comply. Instead, the PA has spent the last 18 months mulling over tougher legislation governing reporters’ work.)

While El-Qot is sharply critical of the free-wheeling tactics of what many in media derisively call the ‘yellow press,’ he is adamant that the government won’t get a free ride from Akhbar Al-Yom. The weekly will be as critical of the powers that be as the opposition press, but held to a higher standard of proof.

“Akhbar Al-Yom is a paper for all Egyptians, and it will not be the mouthpiece of the NDP or of any other political party. It will be the mouthpiece of Egyptian nationalism and the Egyptian citizen I am undertaking that pledge,” promises El-Qot.

“There is no limit on freedom at Akhbar Al-Yom [but] I do not want vulgarity in my paper,” says El-Qot. “If a journalist has documents [incriminating] any official in Egypt, I will publish them. No matter who that official is, I will publish the documents provided that they are authentic,” El-Qot asserts.

On the other hand El-Qot, who is a member of the NDP’s committee for professionals, admits he will never be able to fully transcend his biases. “I am an NDP member and I admit that I will be complimentary That is human nature,” he says, “ but one tries as much as one can to be impartial and objective.”

Mohsen Allam Ahmed El-Naggar, an analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and member of the Press Syndicate’s elected board

Saraya and El-Qot’s pledges of independence will be put to the test this month as the campaign period for the September presidential elections is expected to kick off. Already, the Supreme Press Council (the body appointed by the Shura Council to oversee press affairs) has issued a set code of conduct it says journalists must abide while covering the elections.

At the top of the principles it outlines: impartiality and objectivity in presenting presidential candidates to the public.

“We will present all candidates equally,” Saraya promises while simultaneously saying he will not stop headlining Mubarak’s activities on the front page — a decision that has prompted several critics to brand the national press as ‘government propaganda.’

Saraya insists that the president’s activities are no less deserving of coverage just because there’s an election campaign on. The head of state’s activities, he says, are by definition newsworthy.

“The president’s activities must be covered because the Egyptian state is strong and will not [cease functioning] during the elections. We will continue covering the state’s activities. We will give political competitors freedom to present their platforms, views and ideas, but I cannot lose my readers because of the presidential elections,” Saraya argues.

Mohsen Allam Mohammed Abuel Hadeed, chairman of the board at Dar Al-Tahrir

(While there is inevitably overlap, most media around the world do attempt to separate the incumbent’s activities as an elected office holder from his or her activities as a candidate for re-election.)

Meanwhile, Saraya insists he will also cover the news of anti-Mubarak groups.

“We will present these political phenomena that exist in Egypt as one of the great positive phenomena proving that the Egyptian society is alive. It is true that the majority supports President Mubarak; however, we will pay attention to the political minority,” says Saraya, whose first column as editor-in-chief was a tribute to Mubarak’s achievements over the past quarter of a century.

For his part El-Qot also vows to abide by the impartiality clause “as much as possible” while covering the presidential campaigns and welcoming opponents of the regime to submit opinion columns to his newspaper.

How, then, does he explain first two columns as editor-in-chief, which applauded Mubarak’s policies? The front page of the second issue of Akhbar Al-Yom to hit newsstands after the shakeup had a full-page column with El-Qot’s byline and a painted portrait of Mubarak. The column glorified the president’s policies and urged readers and political partisans to participate in Egypt’s first multiparty presidential elections despite calls for a boycott made by opposition groups. In the same column, he ruled out the possibility that any candidate could defeat Mubarak.

El-Qot sees no contradiction between this type of column and his vow to commit to neutrality in the presidential race. “I love Hosni Mubarak very much and I am not saying that out of hypocrisy,” says El-Qot, who insists that he is free to use his weekly column as a platform to express his own views.

But is he really? Ahmed El-Naggar, an analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and a member of the Press Syndicate’s elected board, says no.

“They [editors] do not have the right to do that. If they want to express their views, let them have their own papers. These are national papers. So the general stance of the paper that is always expressed by the front page should be impartial,” says El-Naggar. (Abroad, it is common for newspapers to endorse political candidates, but they do so in their editorial pages, not on the front page.)

What we have now, El-Naggar argues, “is not a national press. If it were so, it would express the views of the whole nation, which includes both the government and the opposition As it stands, this is purely governmental press. If that were not the case,” he argues, “we would find a journalist who belongs to the opposition heading up one of these newspapers. However, the new appointees must be connected with the ruling party or the state apparatus.”

“Over the last two years, the Journalists’ Syndicate has been exerting pressure for change.”

El-Naggar dismisses not only the appointees’ stances, but the very process through which they were selected. “Unfortunately, the shakeup happened and journalists did not take part in the selection process. The state did not suggest names to journalists so they could choose from the leaders of the national press. There could be some good people among the new appointees, but the way they were chosen is corrupt. Had the government suggested names to journalists to choose from, journalists would have chosen the most competent and most acceptable individuals,” continues El-Naggar.

(While many critics argue that the state should get out of the media-ownership business, the notion of journalists electing their editor-in-chief is an unusual one. Owners almost universally retain that right.)

But El-Naggar is not completely against the shuffle, saying the new separation between the business and editorial sides is “a positive change.”

“That [separation] was essential. The situation under the mandates of the former chairmen was an instrument of corruption. One person having control over business and editorial policies meant that the chairman could use his administrative authorities to reward his favorite groups of [journalists]. In fact, this dualism was used very badly. Besides, being a competent editor does not necessarily mean that you are good at financial administration, especially given that these are giant organizations with broad business interests beyond merely publishing newspapers and magazines,” says El-Naggar.

Why the sudden about-face? El-Naggar believes that the government pushed the Shura Council to proceed with the shuffle to defuse pressure exerted by journalists. “This is one of those rare times where internal pressures succeeded. Over the last two years, the Journalists’ Syndicate has been exerting pressure for change. Moreover, lawsuits filed against the former chairmen who stayed on the job in violation of the law contributed to that change,” explains El-Naggar.

Last year, journalists from a number of state-owned press institutions filed suits demanding the state to abide by the law and sack any chairman or editor-in-chief who had passed the legal retirement age of 65. Verdicts have yet to be handed down in any of those suits and have, in any case, been made moot by the retirements. The verdicts are expected this year.

“Of course these lawsuits played a role in the shuffle,” says Omayma Kamal, a journalist at Akhbar Al-Yom who filed suit with Maglis El-Dawla (the State Council) in 2004 to sack Ibrahim Saeda, who was then the paper’s chairman and top editor. “The government’s image would have been shattered if the chairmen of press institutions had been sacked by a court ruling,” Kamal says.

In the meantime, El-Naggar does not expect the editorial policies of the new leaders to be discernible from those of their predecessors.

“These people came to maintain the same editorial policy. This policy may even become more pro-government. Some of the former editors were tolerant in publishing the works of some opponents in a way that could not affect the general stance of the paper. But the new editors will do whatever the government asks them for, especially since they were appointed by the government and not selected by their colleagues,” alleges El-Naggar.

“... [unfair distribution of ad revenues] must be addressed. All personnel are entitled to ad revenues.”

So after leaning on the government to bring in new blood, will journalists take a pro-government policy lying down? El-Naggar doesn’t seem to think so — and expects editors’ attempts to impose their views on journalists to face strong opposition. “If any of the new editors try to maintain the same policy, I think he would face rebellion from the side of journalists, especially given that none of the new appointees has the same record or grip on his staff as the former editors did. This is a new era,” says El-Naggar.

Aside from editorial challenges, the new E-i-Cs face more serious difficulties on the business front.

“We face many different problems,” says Abdel Kader Shohaib, chairman of the board of Dar El-Hilal and editor-in-chief of the weekly newsmagazine Al-Mussawer. “There are chronic problems at all press organizations, not just Dar El-Hilal. These problems are due to the huge amount of debts that have accumulated over the years. These debts are a load on the shoulders of whoever takes over the presidency of the board in any press organization.”

Shohaib says Dar El-Hilal is laden with no less than LE 250 million in debts, which he blames on “poor management and bad journalism.”

“The role of several national publications diminished because these publications gave up their roles as national publications that should express the views of the whole society with no exceptions. They should not just express the views of government officials That is illogical,” says Shohaib, adding that biased editorial policies ultimately reduced readership.

El-Naggar, who recently published a study on financial conditions in state-owned press organizations, insists that corruption mars the financial performance of the national press. He points to the involvement of journalists in attracting advertisers to their papers as an explicit form of corruption.

“The mix of advertising with editorial work has spread uncontrollably at all press organizations This mix was instated in the 1980s and prevailed dangerously in the 1990s,” says El-Naggar, adding that policies adopted by former chairmen encouraged this “unethical overlap.”

(To again look abroad, codes of conduct at just about every newspaper mandates that editorial staff are explicitly barred from selling advertisements or using their stories and columns for any form of personal gain.)

Just as bad, El-Naggar says, is that the annual budgets of the state-owned media giants are tightly held secrets.

“On the financial level, the distribution of incomes is totally corrupt. Basic salaries are well determined, but the distribution of supplementary incomes reflects corruption,” alleges El-Naggar who claims that commissions on ad revenues topping millions of pounds are distributed among top newspaper staffers.

“In one of these press organizations, which might be the biggest one in the country, the value of general incentives distributed among 16,000 employees is LE 58 million. However, the value of special incentives distributed among the organization’s chairman, the general manager of the advertising department and journalists who bring these ads in is LE 77 million,” claims El-Naggar, who declined to disclose the name of publishing house he was discussing.

“The unfair distribution of incomes means journalists cannot earn a decent living on their salaries. If the journalist does not have another job and is not good at mixing journalism with advertising, he will not be able to live properly,” says El-Naggar.

Mohamed Abuel Hadeed, chairman of the board at Dar El-Tahrir, which publishes Al Gomhuria daily and the English-language daily The Egyptian Gazette, agrees with El-Naggar that distribution of income at press organizations is unfair.

“When the journalist is officially hired, he gets LE 200. That is the minimum salary he can get. As for maximum salaries, they vary. They can reach up to LE 10,000 in the case of editors-in-chief and chairmen of boards The majority of journalists earn less than LE 500 or 600 per month. That is a problem because these are young journalists who are, in fact, the most productive staffers and whose standard of living should be improved,” says Abuel Hadeed.

Abuel Hadeed agrees with El-Naggar that many journalists sell their professional ethics down the river Nile as they sell advertising. “This mix is reflected in the editorial material of the publication. Sometimes, you cannot tell whether a news story is sponsored by a source or not, impartial or not. That’s definitely a big problem,” he says.

The Dar El-Tahrir chairman, though, will neither confirm nor deny El-Naggar’s allegations about the unfair distribution of ad revenues. “If that happened or is happening, it must be addressed. All personnel are entitled to ad revenues,” says Abuel Hadeed.

Dar El-Tahrir itself is indebted to Banque du Caire and the National Bank of Egypt to the tune of LE 375 million — loans the house took out to build its new Ramses Street headquarters, which opened for business in 2003, admits Abuel Hadeed. Moreover, the organization owes millions to the Tax Authority and Social Insurance Authority. “[To sort this problem out], we have three available means. The state could exempt press organizations from some of these amounts, give us subsidies, or allow press organizations to pay off their debts in installments,” suggests Abuel Hadeed.

While Abuel Hadeed insists that bank loans were invested with integrity, he blames financial difficulties on corruption and lack of state supervision. “I announced in several places during the last 10 days that there must be transparency in press organizations, that they should disclose their budgets to people. Better supervision must be imposed on the administrative and financial divisions of publishing houses in order to preserve public funds,” says Abuel Hadeed who, upon promotion, published a column titled “An Account to the People,” disclosing the institution’s balance sheet for fiscal year 2003-2004, which was ratified by the general assembly in June 2005.

Despite the debts, Abuel Hadeed believes he can raise journalists’ salaries. “My prime objective is to increase the organization’s resources. This would require the improvement of the performance of the organization’s publications. Distribution would increase and, ultimately, we will have more ads,” hopes Abuel Hadeed.

“We have some assets that we won’t need in the next period, so we can invest them. For example, I have a large plot of land in Sixth of October that I will not need in the next years. So I can rent it out By increasing the resources, I can pay off some of the debts and raise salaries. This way we can raise salaries despite debts,” he suggests.

El-Qot also admits journalists’ salaries are low.

“Salaries are very low and that is one of the reasons why journalists write for several newspapers. The same journalist who works with a governmental paper writes for opposition papers for the sake of money, regardless of his convictions,” says El-Qot.

But he insists that his prime objective is to increase circulation from 500,000 to a million copies per issue. “If this objective is attained, you will find me fighting and struggling to raise journalists’ salaries,” El-Qot promises.  et