Al-Masry Al-Yom, the first independent daily operating under an Egyptian license, has come a long way since its first issue hit newsstands just over 18 months ago, recently distinguishing itself as one of the most credible Arabic-language newspapers on the market with its tough coverage of December’s parliamentary elections.

Surprisingly, what sets Al-Masry Al-Yom apart from the mainstream competition is the most basic of journalistic foundation blocks — the belief in the importance of news. “We started out with the main concept that press in Egypt was suffering from a grave crisis. This crisis manifested itself in the editorial language and in the biased political tone adopted by other newspaper’s administrations,” says Magdy El-Gallad, editor-in-chief of the upstart daily.

Before the birth of Al-Masry Al-Yom, the young editor-in-chief notes, “There were national and party papers that published only what promoted the policies of the owners. National papers promoted the policies of the government and the [ruling National Democratic Party] and had become the mouthpiece of the ruling party, and as a consequence did not provide readers with the information and the news they needed. Party papers had committed the same mistake because they expressed the point of view of the party and the party leader and only published what helped these ideas. Most of the other independent newspapers were weeklies that provided the reader with the freedom of opinion and not the freedom of information, mainly because as weeklies they could not keep up with the news pace.”

Although Al-Masry Al-Yom’s board also wanted to provide a large space in the paper for the freedom of opinion, the main concept was to give readers what they needed — the freedom of information.

“There was a large chasm in news coverage in Egypt, which was not covered by either the national or the party press. Events occurred and were either not covered or were suppressed, and if the existing newspapers had to cover them, they colored them according to their political affiliations. In both cases a crime was being committed against the Egyptian reader. News did not reach readers as it happened. Al-Masry Al-Yom, on the other hand, strongly believes in the right of the reader to receive a great deal of objective and balanced information and news, thus leaving it up to the reader to take sides and form opinions, and I think these are the universal ideas represented in the international press.

“The Egyptian press had been bemoaning an idea that had disappeared from the whole world, the idea of the ‘death of the reader.’ We want to revive the reader. We respect our readers; we respect their intelligence and their right to access information. We side with no one, we only want the truth. Opposition is allotted a fair space, civil society is given its fair share, and if the government ever does something good, we publish it. We are not the opposition, but are trying to preserve the true meaning of independence. We cover everything that happens; we do not make the news, we just carry it,” El-Gallad says.

To carve itself a niche on the market, the daily had to write a new set of rules and ethics — and stick to them. For El-Gallad, it was his staff of reporters that made all the difference.

“We decided to recruit very young reporters, those who had just graduated and have not been polluted with what was going on in the Egyptian press. We trained them to become true professionals working under the ideal of objectivity. We developed our own set of criteria and taught our reporters to work on new writing forms that were not familiar to the Egyptian press, the story and feature forms,” the editor-in-chief points out.

Maintaining the division between ownership, administration and editorial departments remains the most important factor in maintaining journalistic credibility, he adds.

“The ownership does its part in providing the right atmosphere for the editorial division to operate smoothly. Nobody gives us orders,” he says. The third code, El-Gallad explains, is the separation between advertising and editorial. “This is an almost sacred code. Our reporters do not sell ads and have nothing to do with it. To ensure this we have set our advertising department in a different geographic location. Our only communication occurs when they call to book ad space. Daily newspapers depend heavily on details. If we let go of some of the ethical and professional details, we will soon fall,” he says.

Sticking to their own set of rules has been an uphill battle.

“We have faced a great degree of resistance,” El-Gallad admits. “Institutions, public entities and officials all fought us. Government organizations still do not understand the idea of independence. Even newspapers, both national and party ones, resisted us, sometimes attacking and sometimes casting doubt, although we saw some support from a few independent newspapers and independent satellite stations that understood us. But I think the others are starting to catch on. They are starting to understand the concept of independence.”

As an Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Yom is not subject to any censorship, points out El-Gallad. “But we are morally committed to the society. There may be some issues that we see beneficial to publish, while others we refrain from publishing for fear of threatening national security, thus performing self censorship,” he says.

Most recently, El-Gallad has applied his own rules to coverage of the elections. “There were a number of criteria that we agreed upon before we started our extensive coverage, and these were mainly objectivity and credibility. We do not side with anyone, but merely report what happens, and if violence and bribery were going on, we show them. Other papers may have had political affiliations to think of and tried to cover up these events, but we do not. Another important factor that helped us succeed is the extensive network of reporters working for us. During the elections we had 120 correspondents working outside Cairo. A story occurring in the Red Sea or Qena is as important as a story occurring in the capital. We are trying to remedy the problem of the centralization of news, which is a reflection of the centralization of governance in Egypt. We had a reporter and a photographer in each and every location, which cost us a lot of money, training and some casualties, but it was definitely worth it,” the journalist explains.

Which is not to say that El-Gallad isn’t often lobbied one way or another.

“There are attempts to influence us. Sometimes we receive threats, sometimes polite expressions of disappointment. At other times we face distribution problems and are surprised to find out the newspaper has been pulled off the stands. This happened when we published councilor Noha El-Zeini’s testimony [on allegations of corruption during the parliamentary elections]. This is why we published it again the next day. But we are sure that these pressures will dissolve with time,” El-Gallad announces confidently.

After all, President Hosni Mubarak himself chose Al-Masry Al-Yom through which to address the nation in an exclusive interview.

“The president told me, ‘If you were not a respectable newspaper I would not have agreed to talk to you.’ Together, with Al-Ahram, which is the largest national paper, we were the only newspaper granted interviews, although we had applied along with 29 other newspapers,” El-Gallad relates proudly.

As he tells it, all the media monitoring groups placed Al-Masry Al-Yom at the top of the list of the most credible and objective newspapers in Egypt, including the media monitors of the National Coalition. The International Crisis Group cited the publication 45 times in its report on Egypt, as opposed to nine times for Al-Ahram and two times for Al-Akhbar, while all the human rights and civil society organizations regarded the newspaper as the most balanced in the Egyptian press.

“People believe us,” says El-Gallad, his earnestness clear. “I underline this 100 times in red ink. A lot of newspapers that were here before us and which appeared with us have more money. We are a small, 16-page newspaper. But people believe us more than some 62-page newspapers. People believe us because we give them pure, unadulterated news.”

So with its newfound success, where does the daily go from here? El-Gallad’s dream is for Al-Masry Al-Yom to become Egypt’s number-one newspaper by any measure — credibility, circulation and profit included.

“Today, we do not have our own printing presses and distribution network, so we must rely on Al-Ahram. We have no control over distribution, and this causes us some problems. We intend to remedy this soon,” El-Gallad declares. et