Is a Truly Free Press Emerging in the Wake of the Arab Spring? | Fast Forward | OZY - 0 views
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Attalah is the chief editor of Egypt’s only independent media outlet, with 124,000 followers on Twitter and 241,000 on Facebook. But Mada Masr isn’t alone. It’s among a growing number of independent Arabic digital outlets that are emerging as fresh sources of news in a region where tyrants and oligarchs have for decades controlled the media.
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Some, like Al Jumhuriya (The Republic) and Syria Untold, are run by exiled Syrian intellectuals from Germany, Turkey and Lebanon. Others, like Daraj (Stairs) — with 135,000 followers on Facebook — are providing pan-Arab coverage from Lebanon, where most traditional newspapers are party-affiliated. Still others, like 7iber (pronounced “hiber,” and meaning Ink) and Sowt (Voice), are offering nuanced coverage to readers in Jordan despite the threat of censorship. 7iber has 120,000 followers on Twitter and 341,000 on Facebook.
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grief, limited resources and threat of censorship haven’t dissuaded these outlets from revolutionizing Arabic-language journalism
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These outlets offer their content for free and generate money from grants or by providing research and translation services. Mada Masr depends on the latter two streams. The business model is precarious, but so far it’s working. The outlet has gradually expanded to 32 employees.
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7iber now has 14 staffers and has built a credible reputation for providing in-depth reporting and nuanced analysis. In September 2017, it published an in-depth piece about the fate of 70 Sudanese refugees who were swiftly deported from Jordan in December 2015. The piece won an award for the best multimedia investigation at the Arab Investigative Journalism Awards in 2017.
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On Dec. 10, 2018 — ironically, Human Rights Day — Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces entered the office of Daraj and detained editor-in-chief Hazem el-Amin, based on a complaint regarding a story they had published some months earlier, even though the plaintiff had already withdrawn the complaint. The editor was released within hours, but the incident was “reflective of the ways of a typical police state,” wrote el-Amin on Twitter.
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In May 2017, Egyptian authorities blocked access to Mada Masr and 20 other websites. That makes it difficult for Mada Masr to measure its audience, but its followers still access the site through a VPN. Despite the risk of being shut down, Attalah says that Mada Masr concentrates on reporting fairly and accurately. One of Mada Masr’s articles this May, for instance, revealed how a majority of new television shows launched in Egypt during Ramadan have links to an intelligence agency.
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The next challenge for outlets like 7iber and Mada Masr is to expand beyond their core followers of young progressive millennials and activists, says Ayman Mhanna, executive director of the Lebanese Samir Kassir Foundation, which defends press freedom across the Middle East. “When you ask most people on the streets of Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon about these platforms, they don’t even know they exist,”
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Mada Masr, 7iber, Sowt and Al Jumhuriya have banded together to provide a one-year fellowship called the Alternative Academy for Arab Journalism. The fellowship begins in September and aims to train 25 young journalists each year in critical thinking and in-depth storytelling.