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Opposition protest blocks streets around pro-Mubarak symbol of power in bid to stop journalists inside ‘spreading more deception’ Egypt’s anti-government protesters have laid siege to the state television headquarters, surrounding army barricades and blocking access to the building. “These people are presenting an alternative reality; even as the country is swept by revolution, they remain inside telling lies,” said Samir Abbas, a 37-year-old former tour guide who had joined the crowds outside the Maspero building. “Just as the presidential palace is a symbol of regime power, so is Maspero. We will stay peaceful, but we won’t let their deception continue.” For the state media, the blockade is merely the latest chapter in a revolution that has brought out the best and the worst of the pro-government press. The state media has been accused of inciting violence against demonstrators by labelling them as foreign agents and refusing to air pro-reform views, yet in recent days hundreds of journalists working for loyalist newspapers have walked out on strike and state TV channels have been rocked by a series of high-profile resignations. “We see this in every revolution; state media employees see which way the wind is blowing and suddenly get a conscience,” said Lawrence Pintak, founding dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and an expert on the Arab media. “In Egypt though it’s part of a longer trend. In recent years, media power has been shifting from the old state mouthpieces to regional satellite channels, private Cairo-based TV stations and the nascent privately owned newspapers. That’s led to a tendency for even government-owned media outlets to begin pushing the envelope as well.” In the early days of Egypt’s anti-government uprising, state television channels refused to broadcast images of the ongoing occupation of Cairo’s Tahrir square, instead accusing an unlikely alliance of Israel, Hamas, the US and Iran of fomenting the unrest. When pro-Mubarak baltagiyya (thugs) began attacking demonstrators, killing some and leaving thousands injured, many anti-Mubarak activists held the information ministry and the state media apparatus responsible. With back-to-back coverage of pro-Mubarak protests dominating the state airwaves, it appeared the “Cairo spring” – a degree of media liberalisation that allowed a number of independent Egyptian outlets to flourish over the past five years – was being brought to an end. “The state media has acted as a tool of the security services to strike at the protests,” Gamal Fahmy, a senior member of the Journalists’ Syndicate, told local news outlet Ahram Online. According to Shahira Amin, deputy head of the state-run Nile TV channel and a senior state TV anchor, the moment protests erupted on 25 January Egypt’s government immediately began ramping up editorial control. The atmosphere inside Maspero became more reminiscent of the 1960s, when Nasser’s state media complex was an unabashed government mouthpiece. “Broadcasting as we do in English and French, we always enjoyed a higher degree of freedom than our Arabic-language colleagues and I was able to express myself as I wished,” she told the Guardian. “That day though press releases began arriving from the interior ministry that were questionable, suggesting that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind the protests. I had a talk-show that night, and my boss told me to talk about the ‘foreign elements’ fomenting unrest.” In the absence of live TV images from Tahrir, Amin decided to go down to the square and see for herself what the situation was. “There weren’t any foreign agents, there weren’t any dollars being distributed, there weren’t any of the lies we were being told through the press releases,” she said. “Instead I found a cross-section of Egyptian society, an all-inclusive movement from old to young and rich to poor.” Amin refused to come into work for several days as the protests escalated; in that time her channel broadcast pre-recorded travel programmes about Red Sea holiday towns and made only occasional references to the massive anti-government uprising sweeping the country, normally by focusing on isolated pro-Mubarak supporters. “You can’t have a revolution in your own country and air a story about a beach resort,” she said. “It was ridiculous. Then I saw the Molotov cocktails being thrown at pro-change demonstrators, the violence of the horsemen, the trucks that were running protesters over. For me, that was the breaking point.” Amin tendered her resignation, the first of many inside the state media apparatus who would follow suit as the protests continued. “I realised then that I had to choose which side I was on. And I realised I couldn’t be the mouthpiece of a regime that massacres its own people; that was a line I couldn’t cross.” This week state TV channels have begun to shift the tone of their coverage, offering air time to protesters and in some cases hailing the occupation of Tahrir square as a positive step. On Monday state-run Al-Ahram – the Middle East’s biggest daily newspaper – carried a frontpage editorial praising the “nobility” of the revolution, though it stopped short of calling for the president to step down. “There’s domestic pressure from protesters and outside pressure from Washington to liberalise editorial control, and that’s what we’re now seeing,” claimed Amin. “Nobody inside Maspero is really happy about the government’s response to the protests, they’re just following orders.” Pintak agrees that there is little ideological backing for Mubarak within the ranks of state media employees. “The change in tone and staff resignations do underscore the degree to which the regime is losing support. But it’s also a sign that the majority of Arab journalists, no matter who they work for and what professional compromises they have made, at root support the idea of political and social change. We did a survey a couple of years ago and asked journalists across the region what they saw as the mission of Arab journalism: 75% said political and social change.” Egypt Middle East Protest Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk