AS SOME EVIL SOURCES are only too happy to tell you, a good many journalists are born with price tags poking out of their collars. Some you can buy with a good meal (kebab and kofta, if you please), while others go for no less than a new Rolex or luxury car. With a few strokes of the keyboard, they can make you a devil or an angel, a victim or a lawbreaker — and naive readers who have never before heard your name or seen your face will probably buy it.

While many scribes in both the state-owned and independent press are able to resist temptation, some are only too happy to name their price. The exact price, the theory goes, depends on the nimbleness with which your fingers dance over the keyboard — and how high you rank in the system. The editor-in-chief, after all, must be able to afford gasoline for his massive Mercedes, but a starting scribe may only need a new pair of running shoes.

So what’s a senior writer at an English-language magazine worth? Not as much as you would think, if my first encounter with blatant corruption is anything to go by.

Several years ago, I tracked down a prominent (now-former) Upper Egyptian member of the People’s Assembly for a feature I was writing. The topic was gun control, and she had just launched a very loud campaign against illegal and unregistered firearms. The interview went rather well, I thought — perhaps too well. After turning down her invitation to lunch as we finished up (I’m not much for having mahshi with my sources) I was heading for the door when she chased after me, her plump hand closed in a fist.

“Huh?” I thought. “She hasn’t even read the story and she already wants to hit me?” She wanted to hit me, all right — with the LE 100 bill she was forcing into my palm.

Stunned, I looked back and forth between the cash in my hand and this self-proclaimed warrior against corruption. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she quickly reassured me with a mischievous grin. “You didn’t stay for the mahshi, so this is to help with your transportation.”

Amr Fahmy

Transportation? How creative. Are MPs so out-of-touch that they don’t know the price of a bus ticket or the cost of a cab ride?

“No, really, thank you,” I said, explaining that not only did I have my car with me, but that the only things I take from my sources are quotes.

“Please!” she demanded. “Take it! I’m like your elder sister!”

I pressed the bill back into her hand and bolted for the elevator as she turned her charms on the photo editor who had accompanied me to the interview. At home an hour or so later, I took a long look at myself in the mirror. “Do I look that much like a beggar?” I asked my reflection. My poor father, who spent thousands of dollars on my education, must have been spinning in his grave at this woman’s notion that she could buy me for a measly LE 100.

Now blooded, I didn’t bat an eye when the young Upper Egyptian arms dealer I subsequently interviewed for the same story offered me LE 300 to make him look good in print.

Mohsen Allam Mostafa Bakry, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly El-Esbou

“No, really, I swear,” I told him, “I don’t take anything from sources. I’m just doing my job.”

To give him credit, I only had to say it once — men are much more sensible when it comes to money, it seems — but he later tried another tack: “You write nice words and I’ll buy an ad in your magazine — but only if you get the commission”

How repulsively sweet.

Never air dirty laundry in public? Far from it: As the self-appointed watchdogs for the public interest, journalists do their most valuable work when they unearth stories of filth and corruption. Put a little more prosaically: We’re at our best when we’re playing the role of the matronly old lady in the detergent commercial, pointing out the blotches and stains on the blanket that is society, our faces sour and desperate as we scream for Mrs. Clean to sprinkle her magical red and blue detergent crystals for results whiter than white.

Mohsen Allam Al-Fajr’s editor-in-shief Adel Hammouda with two of his staff reporters.

But as the hoary old adage goes: Lie down in filth and it’s bound to rub off on you.

And it has. Today, corruption is so widespread in the media itself that it’s hard not to ask: Who’s watching the watchers? As Adel Hammouda, the Al-Ahram columnist, editor-in-chief of Al-Fajr and dean of the muckraking press, put it to me last month: “You expect a public employee to take a bribe, but when a judge does, it’s harder to swallow. Your next-door neighbor can cheat on his wife and you hardly bat an eye, but when a religious figure does the same thing, it’s somehow more revolting and hypocritical. It’s a matter of expectations, and the natural expectation is that the media should expose the corrupt, not serve as their tool.”

In the past year, the media has been forced — grudgingly — to air its own dirty laundry after the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Public Funds Investigating Attorney launched probes into corruption at Media Production City (MPC). Around the same time, the Central Auditing Organization, Parliament’s anti-corruption taskforce, started poking into the murky goings-on at the three leading state-owned daily news organizations just weeks after a government-ordered shake-up sent their long-serving chiefs into retirement.

Libel and slander suits against the independent press have become the norm as the so-called “yellow” press frequently slings accusations of wrongdoing without the documentation to back them up.

Is it any wonder that honest, objective reporting has become a rare commodity, that entire daily newspapers resemble nothing so much as op-ed sections?

Mohsen Allam Al-Amir Abaza, a journalist with both Al-Qahera and Al-Siyasi.

Corruption may have been front-page news for the public, but it was an old story to the insiders who lived with it in their newsrooms and back offices. They knew their near-tenured chairmen and editors-in-chief had absolute power unchecked by outside oversight. The Chinese wall between advertising and editorial was crumbling: “Tell the source it’s the ad or the lethal injection,” was one high-profile editor-in-chief’s near-daily admonition to his troops. They knew their bosses pulled down monthly salaries and commissions north of six figures while they toiled for peanuts. Codes of ethics, they learned, were things they had left behind in their undergraduate journalism textbooks.

And those on the inside who had tried to bring it to light? Well, that’s why every major media organization has its own equivalent of Siberia, as one insider at a major daily told us last month.

Appointing new faces to top leadership positions after decades of stagnation is a start, but those on the front lines of journalism say it will take time and serious commitment to completely overhaul the state-owned media’s financial, management and editorial skeletons. They’re also calling for the independent press to become more accountable and less sensational — to earn the right to play a constructive role in the debate on major national issues.

Above all, though, journalists need to learn they can’t keep throwing stones when their houses, too, are made of glass.

Ibrahim Nafie has earned more publicity in semi-retirement than he did as chairman and editor-in-chief of the Al-Ahram Organization, which publishes the nation’s leading daily newspaper and dozens of other weekly, monthly and academic titles. It’s just not the type of publicity the former media baron was looking for. After a smooth exit from power in last July’s shake-up, Nafie became a regular Al-Ahram columnist and settled into his role as a member of the Shura Council, the nation’s upper house of Parliament.

By fall, though, he was making headlines of his own as he faced widespread allegations of corruption stemming from his more than 25 years as the boss at Al-Ahram. By this spring, the drumbeat of allegations had reached a fever pitch, forcing the Shura to strip him of his parliamentary immunity so he could face questioning by the Public Funds Investigating Attorney.

Nafie can thank Mostafa Bakry for much of his current predicament. The outspoken editor-in-chief of the independent weekly El-Esbou became a member of the People’s Assembly after winning a seat in last fall’s parliamentary elections. Not long after Nafie retired, Bakry began receiving copies of documents that he claims prove Nafie squandered public funds and illegally profited from his post. Joining the former Al-Ahram chief on Bakry’s hit list were other now-retired big fish including Samir Ragab (the former Al-Gomhouria boss) and Ibrahim Saeda (ex-head of Al-Akhbar), who, like Nafie, were sent into semi-retirement last summer, years after having passed mandatory retirement age.

Bakry alleges that millions were doled out, often on Nafie’s signature alone and without supporting documentation — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There were, of course, the usual allegations of favors and sweetheart deals, but the Esbou editor-in-chief also alleged in print and on the floor of Parliament that Nafie’s LE 2-million-plus per-month take-home (which included salary and commissions) was supplemented by millions more in hidden benefits, that the media group’s assets were used improperly, and that Al-Ahram’s foreign offices were hotbeds of corruption. Other documents Bakry published purported to show an improper relationship between Al-Ahram and the company that provides the publishing giant with its inks and printing plates. A family member, Bakry alleges, had set up a shell company to bill Al-Ahram at inflated prices.

Nafie denied all of Bakry’s charges and is mounting a vigorous legal defense. Prosecutors are still investigating, but have yet to call the former press baron in for questioning.

Others, though, have had to face the music. Former advertising executive Ihab Talaat was recently sentenced to 57 years of hard labor and ordered to pay a combination of fines and restitution worth LE 2.5 million, stemming from a scheme in which prosecutors claim he conspired with someone inside Al-Ahram to pay for ads with bogus checks. Talaat was also ordered to pay Al-Ahram compensation of LE 2,001 for each of the 19 bounced checks. The 57-year sentence broke down as three years for each of the 19 checks.

Talaat allegedly oweed Al-Ahram LE 77 million for advertisements he bought in the national daily. Presiding Judge Hamed Hassanein is also due to hear charges that Talaat allegedly pocketed millions more in illegal profits from kickbacks on ads aired on Egyptian Television.

News surfaced last month that Talaat had left Cairo for London to seek medical treatment; unconfirmed reports suggest he may have since reached a settlement agreement with the courts on charges stemming from reported business dealings with Media Production City (more on that in a moment) and that he was nearing a settlement with Al-Ahram.

“Corruption at Al-Ahram was no secret,” Bakry claims, “but there were many trying to cover it up. It was only after Ibrahim Nafie left his post that I received the documentation supporting my allegations. I didn’t hesitate to publish them — I was praying that the authorities would start an investigation and let the cat out of the bag.”

Still, Bakry says the decision to go public wasn’t an easy one.

“I was asked more than once by some in power to stop writing and leave it to the judiciary, but I was adamant that the more documents I published, the more I would help the investigators build their case. My documentation came from people who worked there, and the more I published, the more I received,” Bakry says, declining to name the sources of the paper trail.

Although Nafie was stripped of his parliamentary immunity three months ago, Bakry is still waiting to see him be grilled: “Till now, he hasn’t been formally questioned, which raises question marks,” Bakry says.

With the jack-in-the-box no longer able to scare anyone, it’s not only outsiders such as Bakry who are taking shots: A group of Al-Ahram journalists have filed a report with the Prosecutor-General’s office demanding an investigation into institutionalized corruption.

Ahmed El-Naggar is a leader of the rebel forces. A senior analyst at the Al-Ahram Political and Strategic and Studies Center, editor-in-chief of the Al-Ahram Strategic Economic Trends Report and member of the board of the Journalists’ Syndicate, El-Naggar has been an eyewitness to what he claims is in-house corruption for well over a decade.

“Journalists aren’t immune to the general deterioration of society,” El-Naggar says. “Corruption has become the constitution governing many aspects of our daily lives, so it’s no surprise it’s at play in the national media. It was a professional crime to keep the same leaders in place for all those years despite the obscene losses their press groups were accumulating. By law, Ibrahim Nafie should have been given his golden handshake in January 1994, when he hit mandatory retirement age. When the state itself turns a blind eye to the law, it’s tacitly telling you that you can do the same thing.”

By law, a committee of the Shura Council appoints the heads of state-owned media organizations, and since last summer’s shake-up, it has refused to allow any one person to be in charge of both editorial and business operations. It’s a start, El-Naggar says, but it has done nothing to publicly account for how the state’s print-media houses racked up LE 6 billion in debt.

Last month, Shura Council Speaker Safwat El-Sherif said that he thinks it is time the government discusses absolving them of that debt.

“These organizations could be outstanding — they have the assets, the latest technologies and the skills. We must lift the financial burden off their shoulders as soon as possible, either by canceling their debts or by increasing their capital,” El-Sherif said in an interview with the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in June.

Even El-Naggar sees sense in the notion — after all, the government played at least a supporting role in creating the mess by failing to crack down on corruption — but says absolving the system of its debt will only work if the press is held financially and professionally accountable from now on.

“These institutions played the government’s tune, whether it was true or false, for years, and in return the state turned a blind eye to corruption,” El-Naggar alleges. “They helped create media monsters. In 2004, I did a salary survey and found that our chairman’s salary was 10 times that of the American president! For nine months afterward, none of my stories were published by any Al-Ahram publication.”

But if, as El-Naggar alleges, journalists knew what was going on — if they were forced to sell advertisements in direct violation of the nation’s media laws — why didn’t they file complaints? Surely someone must have had outside oversight. Where was he? On vacation? In a coma?

As it turns out, the only watchdog is the Central Auditing Organization, the Parliament’s anti-corruption taskforce, and it’s not getting very much cooperation.

“The Central Auditing Organization has demanded reports and documents from these institutions, but they haven’t received any, which has made it hard for them to play their oversight role. I have budgets for Akhbar El-Yom that lists commissions for journalists who sold ads —a direct violation of Article 32 of the Press Law and a criminal offense,” El-Naggar alleges. “When confronted by the CAO, they replied, ‘Everyone does it — it’s the norm.’ In sum, no journalist has been asked to pay a penalty.”

And even when it has the documentation it needs, the CAO can only bring scandals to light — it has no power of its own to bring charges against anyone. “The authority must be made independent,” El-Naggar says, “It needs enforcement powers and its reports must be taken seriously.”

Nothing whets a journalist’s appetite more than talk of corruption — even their own. Hammouda theorizes that a heavyweight in the governing National Democratic Party looking to settle scores was the source of the documents Bakry published. After all, many think Nafie’s dethroning was the outgrowth of a political fight within the party.

No journalist has been sued as many times as Hammouda: His enemies range from business leaders to MPs, from ministers to the former head of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union. Fans say Hammouda has been a tireless warrior against corruption since he was editor-in-chief of the weekly Rose Al-Youssef in the 1990s. His detractors — and there are many — allege that Hammouda has pressured businessmen to advertise in his paper by opening fire on them.

While he doesn’t exactly fit the profile of an innocent lamb, the editor-in-chief says he’s gotten payback from other journalists bought off by those he has gone after in the past: “For a quarter-page ad, I was being attacked in other newspapers and my integrity was questioned by other journalists. They were either doing a favor for someone or it was a paid job on behalf of one businessmen or another.”

Hammouda says he’s pinning his hope for the future of Egyptian media on the independent press, which he prefers to call “private, because there’s no such thing as independence.” Not so long ago, the independent press was a hotbed of corruption. Today, new titles including the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm and Hammouda’s own Al-Fajr are trying to change that image by playing a more mature, less partisan role in national politics. None of that’s to say the independent press is completely clean — corruption is as much a problem there as in the national press, it’s simply that state-owned media has been forced under the microscope of late.

“The media is a mirror reflecting society’s image,” he says. “We look at it and we see ourselves. If society is lovely, so is the image of the press. If it’s corrupt and ugly, so is the press. Ultimately, the absence of accountability — of the government to the press and vice versa — led to the vulgarity of corruption. It’s made it too easy to abuse or misuse resources.

“Take Al-Ahram as an example. It’s a big institution with investments of more than LE 2 billion. Three years ago, when they revealed their budget, they claimed they turned a profit of LE 20 million. That’s it? Al-Ahram daily is the main source of profits — it has ads, classifieds, obituaries and copy sales — but its dozens of sister publications lose a combined LE 50 million a year,” he claims.

With significant resources at their disposal, little need to be accountable for how they use them and connections to call on for favors (for themselves and for others they’re looking to influence), it’s no surprise, Hammouda claims, that, “some editors-in-chief gradually turned into thugs — it’s just that they use their pens, not clubs.”

With a massive pay equity issue at play, can cub reporters be blamed for dreaming of growing up and becoming the fat-cat editor-in-chief?

“Can you imagine that the best writers at Al-Ahram earn salaries of LE 2,400 [before bonuses and profit sharing], while a mid-level financial manager can make up to LE 30-40,000?” he claims. “The independent and respectable writer earns peanuts, which means we have to supplement our income. Many of us do that by writing books or articles for magazines.”

Others, though, do it by selling their loyalty, becoming attack dogs for those who throw a few pounds their way. That, Hammouda says, “is the worst form of the corruption. By becoming favorites, their careers advance at the expense of the talented, honest writers. It’s why we have so many papers today, but few decent people to run them.”

Media Production City, the self-styled ‘Hollywood of the Middle East,’ opened for business in 1990 to produce dramas, not become one itself, but corruption scandals haunted the City for years. It wasn’t until Anas El-Fiqqi became minister of information in 2005 that the government launched a full investigation into allegations of financial chicanery at MPC. In short order, El-Fiqqi lodged a complaint with the Public Funds Investigating Attorney against MPC chief Abdel Rahman Hafez. Justice may have come riding a turtle, but the outcome of the investigation was clear: Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel Wahed has since brought charges of bribery, misappropriation of funds, money laundering and abuse of office against Hafez and key associates including former commercial and marketing manager Hamed Bassyouni and production manager Hayam Fadel.

According to the Prosecutor-General’s Office, Hafez supplemented his generous salary by pocketing cash due to business partners and suppliers, including an LE 2.19 million payment MPC was supposed to make to Dubai TV. On some 43 foreign trips over two years, prosecutors allege, Hafez pocketed an estimated LE 195,569 in expense reimbursements from MPC —despite the fact that each of the trips was fully paid by the host countries. Moreover, they claim, he was as generous to his favorites as he was to himself, having allegedly helped now-disgraced advertising executive Talaat take home nearly LE 26.3 million of the City’s money through illegal discounts and free airtime.

No wonder Dr. Hassan Ragab, a columnist for Al-Akhbar and professor of media studies at the American University in Cairo, used to call it “Media Wreckage City.”

“I’ve been writing about the media production circus for years, but when did these people get exposed and charged? When a new minister of information came into office. It was like they suddenly came out of a coma and discovered, ‘Oh my God! There’s corruption!’”

Ragab wasn’t alone in documenting allegations of corruption at MPC. In July 2004, Al-Amir Abaza, a journalist with Al-Qahira and Al-Siyasi, wrote the first of many exposés. His weapon: A damning CAO report outlining massive losses at Hollywood Middle East, 30 percent of which is traded on the stock exchange. While Hafez’s favorites allegedly enjoyed their perks, MPC failed to pay shareholder dividends for seven straight years.

After his first piece hit newsstands, Abaza says, he was inundated with insider tips on other stories of corruption at Media City.

“Sadly, the Central Auditing Organization’s role is just to uncover corruption — it doesn’t put the corrupt on trial. It reports to the People’s Assembly, which can refer complaints to the Prosecutor-General,” he says.

Media City, Abaza continues, existed in a state of limbo that allowed corruption to flourish. “The City is a public-sector company, but it’s not really public sector because it’s listed on the bourse, so the situation has become mushy. It’s like the fact that our Constitution says we’re a socialist state, but we’re adopting a free-market economy.”

“Media City is a joint stock company and is listed in the stock market, yet the minister of information controls it,” Hammouda adds. “We all saw how it became a side door for favors. If a friend in good standing retired or was kicked out of office, you called in a favor to get him a post at Media City or one of its subsidiaries. It’s all beyond reason: They built massive sets without a second thought to budgetary implications. Go visit Al-Jazeera’s studios and you’ll feel you’re in a matchbox, but go to Media City and you’ll be shocked by the grandeur of the place.

“Corruption is old-fashioned: It thrives on obscene luxury and grandeur.”

The rot, Hammouda alleges, was already there in the Big House — ERTU — where he claims, “There was a pricing list for certain programs. If you wanted to your face or your product to appear on Sabah El-Kheir, ya Misr (Good Morning, Egypt), it cost so much. You’re not an expert? Don’t worry, they would make you one in less than an hour. If you wanted to be seen in a TV shot while a senior government official is inaugurating a factory or a city, it cost ‘X’. The fees depended on whether you wanted your back or your face to show. The fish gets rotten from its head, not the tail: When my assistant sees me taking a bribe, he’s more likely to do the same.”

That’s starting to change, too: Following a police sting operation in late 2002, Mohammed El-Wakil, the senior producer for Sabah El-Kheir, ya Misr, was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for taking bribes and gifts to place people and products on the nation’s most-watched breakfast show. Today, Amany Abu Khozeim, ERTU News Sector’s senior presenter, is under investigation for allegedly conspiring with Essmat Abou El-Maaly, the head of the Sixth of October Authority, in a kickback and bribery scandal. Prosecutors say the case will head to trial this fall.

After ticking off allegations of petty bribery and senior officials staying on at MPC long after they were required to retire, Abaza gets to his juiciest allegation, or what he calls the “source of all evil in MPC”: the production of television dramas.

The system of executive producers and co-producers MPC used to produce dramas for ERTU, he alleges, left the door wide open to corruption in the forms of kickbacks. Want to produce a TV serial at MPC? Fine: Just hand over a hefty percentage of the contract’s value (based, of course, on exaggerated production costs) as a personal gift to senior MPC staff.

As new subsidiaries and shell companies were reportedly created to spread the cash around beneath investigators’ radars, the result was “new companies doing absolutely nothing, headed by people taking home LE 15,000 a month for never showing up at the office. Visit them and all you’d find were the office assistants sitting around playing solitaire,” he claims.

“The end result: boring and tasteless soaps. Is it any wonder that Arab TV dramas are now taking the lead in the market, far ahead of us here in Egypt, the former hub of film and television production in the region?”

National media is in desperate need of restructuring — to throw off the official cloak that restricts its movement and spit out the public-sector formula it’s been fed for decades, Abaza and Hammouda say.

Managers with financial training should be running the business side to turn them into profitable organizations, leaving the professional side to editors-in-chief. Even after the Shura Council finally imposed a separation between business and editorial operations at the three main print-media houses, they’ve further crippled institutions such as Dar Al-Helal and Dar Al-Taawon with journalists as chairmen of the board, Abaza claims.

“For the last two years, [former Prime Minister] Dr. Aly Lotfi has been heading a committee studying how to restructure state-owned media [Lofti was appointed by El-Fiqqi], but until now, we’ve heard nothing about their action plan,” says Abaza. “The committee’s being cautious because they don’t want to harm the national media, which is fine with all of us, but they need to find a way to stop the bleeding — to make certain the public’s money isn’t being squandered.

“The media houses need to be run by a new financial management team that brings a private-sector mentality with it,” he continues, “just like the Nazif government is doing with key ministries. Journalists shouldn’t be running the financial show — they’ve proven that. Despite all the resources they’ve had, they’ve run up debts of LE 6 billion and keep running to the state for more money.”

The three journalists — Ragab, Hammouda and Abaza — all agree that the issue of pay for journalists needs revisiting.

“Why don’t they treat journalists [at state-run newspapers] like judges if they truly want to secure their independence and freedom,” Abaza suggests. “Give them financial independence to ensure they write objectively. Twenty years ago, journalists were the third-best-paid state employees. Today, they rank somewhere between thirty-third and thirty-sixth. The Journalists’ Syndicate has come up with a new salary structure, but it’s wrestling with the state to get it approved.”

While he agrees salaries are important, though, Hammouda insists that getting serious about media ethics is key. “There are corrupt billionaires,” he says, “and there are starting journalists with no money, but they have ethics — they don’t trade coverage for ads or money. It’s a matter of moral and social education.”

Journalists, he says, also need access to information: The government needs to be forthcoming and learn to disclose accurate information in a timely manner. The state’s lack of transparency often fuels corruption as journalists file stories filled with speculation, rumors, allegations and innuendo because they simply don’t have hard facts. The absence of hard facts also makes it easier for outsiders to take advantage of a scribe covering any particular issue.

Throughout his years in the classroom, Ragab has always painted a romantic picture of the job. Last month, he sat with his familiar smile as he teasingly admitted he was pulling a fast one on us.

“There has always been corruption in the media,” the professor and columnist says, “but the problem today is that corruption has become the norm. No one is ready to do his job unless his palm is greased — it’s a byproduct of the nation’s economic and moral deterioration. Once upon a time, doctors and engineers gave up their careers to work as journalists solely for the love of the profession. They were an addition to the practice, while today gold diggers and those with wastas prevail.

“The essential role of media is to fight corruption and help raise moral standards, but the system is dysfunctional, and the problem is perpetuated every time you pay a starting journalist LE 300 or LE 500. Is that enough to cover transportation and clothing, let alone food? Hardly, so the basic salary from the newspaper is the appetizer — the main courses are served by outside sources. The bright young journalist can work as an ad salesman. He can go to the authority or company he covers on his beat and sell them ads, since he’s the one who writes about them, so it’s easy to praise them to the skies or bring them crashing down. When a mid-level reporter’s salary is in the LE 500-1,000 range and he gets LE 10,000-15,000 a month for selling ads, his loyalty transfers to the advertisers.”

Even those who don’t sell out to advertisers are frequently tempted to fence their best stories to the Arab press, where freelance rates for a single piece are often more than they will earn in a month.

Readers, Ragab says, know something is wrong —and he says he has the circulation figures to prove it, claiming the Higher Press Council recently released a study saying no more than 1 million newspapers are in circulation on any given weekday. Instead of turning to the national press, Egyptians are getting more and more of their news from satellite channels. And while some people are sick of the yellow press, others have become addicted to their coverage of scandals both real and made-up. Many media outlets have embraced the culture of triviality spawned by low-rent music videos and trashy films.

Like Ragab, Hammouda wonders whether the new leaders running the Big Three are up for the challenge.

“Some of the leaders are really good managers, but many of them know little about journalism,” Hammouda says, claiming that has translated into inconsistent editorial policies. “I heard about one editor-in-chief who simply said, ‘Enough seriousness! We want lighter issues for the readers!’ What he doesn’t understand is that newspapers are like people — each has its own character.”

Abaza, meanwhile, warns that the new chieftains need to dig deep to root out the corruption that took place under their predecessors.

“Was the head of Media City the only source of corruption? Were the board members and mid-level managers who are still in place just puppets whose strings he pulled to get them to nod their approval for his misdeeds? It can still be a crime to see no evil and hear no evil,” Abaza says.

“Media is part of the whole process, so you can’t fix it without addressing the ills of society,” says Ragab. “Theoretically, the media should help reform society, but in practice it can do nothing when it is so corrupt itself, when those who run it don’t live up to their responsibilities. We need a new generation of decent, honest writers — writers who care. We need an earthquake to shake up the whole system.”

An earthquake? Maybe it would be less painful for us all if El-Fiqqi simply hired Mrs. Clean to come by and sprinkle around some of her magical red and blue detergent crystals. et