“This is what freedom looks like,” NBC’s Ron Allen shouted from the middle of the square. “This is the moment so many people in this country have waited for. . . . People cannot contain themselves.” (Credit: MSNBC)
Journalists, Bloggers Share in Benefits of Overthrow
The world will not soon forget the scene in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square on Friday, the day that President Hosni Mubarak announced he was stepping down from his 30-year rule after 18 days of protests.
“This is what freedom looks like,” NBC’s Ron Allen shouted from the middle of the square. “This is the moment so many people in this country have waited for. . . . People cannot contain themselves.”
An anchor asked Allen whether he saw parallels with the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. “This is so profound in so many ways, it’s hard to compare historical movements,” Allen demurred.
As with the Civil Rights Movement, though, the beneficiaries of Egypt’s historical movement included journalists and other communicators.
“Dear Mubarak, if it took destroying my car and me getting beaten up for you to leave, it was WORTH IT!” tweeted Mahmoud Salem, an Egyptian digital media businessman and a graduate of Northeastern University in Boston who goes by the name Sandmonkey.
“Egyptian journalists who have courageously found ways to work under the yoke of Mubarak’s censorship and repression are releasing a sigh of relief that they’ve held in for three long decades” Mohamed Abdel Dayem of the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote.
“I just received confirmation that Karim Amer, a blogger and longtime critic of Mubarak who was seized by state agents on Monday, was just released from custody. Amer had recently served a four-year prison term for his writing. That means that all detained journalists whom CPJ had been tracking over the past 18 days are now free.
“Here’s one of the most moving things I heard today: I was talking to a friend who was demonstrating outside the headquarters of the state broadcaster. In his immediate vicinity was a journalist who, in an effort not to stand out, was discreetly using a small flip-camera to film the scene and a small notepad to take notes. As the official announcement was made that Mubarak had stepped down, the crowd roared in approval.
“Almost immediately, my friend relayed, a military officer went up to the reporter and handed him a professional camera with a massive lens. The officer said: ‘We were made to confiscate this camera from a journalist the other day. We had no choice. I don’t even know who that guy was and there is no way to track him. You’re a journalist; you’ll make good use of it. Take it and document the people’s revolution.’ “
Sunday Talk Shows Will Look Like the Same-Old Same-Old
Despite the the corner of the world in which the Egyptian uprising took place and the historical signficance of the event, the Sunday talk shows on American television will feature minimal voices from people of color or from the Middle East, judging from the schedules the networks released on Friday.
The announcement for NBC’s “Meet the Press,” reads, “What will the battle over the budget bring? How will the new members of Congress that rode the wave of Tea Party anger to Washington navigate tough votes ahead like raising the country’s debt ceiling? And what do the tough budget choices in Washington mean for the nation’s big cities?
“Also, insights and analysis on all the Republican positioning in the 2012 race for the White House as conservatives gather for the annual CPAC conference in Washington. Plus the very latest developments in Egypt and what it all means for U.S. policy in the region. Our roundtable: The mayor of Atlanta, Kasim Reed (D); freshman member of congress supported by the Tea Party, Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-IL); former Clinton White House press secretary, Dee Dee Myers; columnist for the New York Times, David Brooks; and Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin.”
ABC’s “Nightline” plans an hour Friday on Egypt, but Sunday’s “This Week With Christiane Amanpour” features no people of color, although Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is frequently on the program. The usual suspects return.
“Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty sit down with Ms. Amanpour to discuss what the revolution in Egypt means for America’s place in the world, how they view the Obama administration’s response to the uprising, and what they would have done differently,” an announcement says.
“On the roundtable: Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, and ABC News’ George Will discuss the Egyptian revolution, the role of social media and what Egypt means for the rest of the middle east.”
CNN’s “State of the Union” with Candy Crowley plans to discuss the “Revolution in Egypt” with John Negroponte, former U.S. Ambassador to U.N., and Edward Walker, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt.
“Fox News Sunday” plans to feature Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee and Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
Only on the two black-oriented Sunday news shows will there be a critical mass of people of color. But because “Weekend With Ed Gordon” on BET and “Washington Watch With Roland Martin” on TV One are taped in advance, those shows had little time to reflect on Mubarak’s Friday resignation.
Gordon’s Sunday night show, taped on Wednesday, missed the resignation completely. “Sunday’s Weekly with Ed Gordon will feature HIV/AIDS Activist Hydeia Broadbent, journalist Tamron Hall, musician David Minnot and former politician Michael Steele,” a publicist said. The topics include “The complex friendships between the US and countries like Egypt, Haiti, Tunisia, etc.”
“Washington Watch,” which will air during the church hour, fared better.
“Jay Feldman, the show’s executive producer, said this by e-mail: “We are running a clip from President Obama’s speech today after President Mubarak resigned. We talked with Smokey Fontaine of Newsone.com about the role of Google Executive Wael Ghonim and the role Facebook and Twitter have had on this revolution and on revolutions to come. Our panel also spent some time talking about the parallels between the movement in Egypt and the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. and the wide impact of Dr. Martin Luther King all around the world. Finally, Roland’s perspective is offering up the lesson of what people can do when they get together and persist in fighting for something they believe in.”
Evaluating participation by journalists of color in the Egypt story, Miami Herald World Editor John Yearwood, co-chairman of the World Affairs Task Force for the National Association of Black Journalists, had this observation:
“It was good to see a few of our members in the coverage mix, Hannah Allam of McClatchy and Ron Allen of NBC News, to name a couple. But this and other big international stories show clearly that journalists of color aren’t often enough assigned to the big international stories. That’s why we spend so much time on the World Affairs Task Force giving members practical experience working overseas. We want our members to be ready for the next big opportunity. But it’s not just on our members. Editors have a responsibility to ensure that coverage teams are diverse. It goes without saying that you get much richer coverage that way.”
