I am not inclined to believe in conspiracies and interpret events from one angle — that the country’s enemies are plotting against us in order to make us stumble and fail.
This way of thinking led to justifying despotism and failure in all our life’s facets, disavowing any responsibility and putting blame on an external culprit that is the conspiracy. Unfortunately, this way of thinking is widespread and has its own writers and broad audience.
The conspiracy way of thinking has emerged recently in interpreting the decline of Egyptian media, entering a stage of chaos, unprofessionalism and disregard towards the minds and hearts of the audience.
Conspiracy theory proponents see that the government is the sole beneficiary from the continuance of media chaos. This is in the form of verbal battles, exchanging obscenities and indecencies between some media personnel and public figures on television screens.
This is then attributed to two reasons. First, distracting people from following what’s going on in the country, or thinking about politics and evaluating the government’s performance.
The media has transformed public space and political events into a big theatre in which everybody is wrestling with everybody over superficial issues and problems.
What’s strange is that the players on the stage of this theatre are using all legitimate and illegitimate means, including swearing and threats. Hence, viewing and following rates among vast sections of audience increased, and they are always driven to be preoccupied with following episodes of these scandals and talking about them.
Second, destroying media and media personnel's credibility, because the audience that follows the media chaos — listening to and seeing the exchange of mutual threats among media and political figures — will not trust or believe the media and media personnel’s discourse, especially if it criticises the government’s performance.
However, when you debate proponents of view of a government conspiracy against the Egyptian media, or present an opposing opinion, they will ridicule you. They will also assert that the government is the sole entity that can legislate new laws by which it can activate the articles of the constitution regarding forming a higher media council, a national agency for journalism, and a national agency for audio-visual media.
The government does not move towards this and is uninterested because it is the beneficiary of the continuance of media chaos and the absence of societal accountability, conspiracy proponents say.
Moreover, the government deliberately delayed issuing a licence for an independent syndicate for media personnel, which organises work in the field of radio and television and issues work permits for announcers or holds them accountable according to a media code of ethics.
Conspiracy advocates accuse the government or security bodies of sustaining the media chaos and even using it to their benefit.
They argue that the state does not want to reform Maspero (the State TV and Radio building) and the security bodies interfere in every major and minor issue inside the building, and that this interference is extended to the private media.
Supporters of the conspiracy theory mention incidents of excluding announcers and cancelling programmes here or there to prove their point. They speak in absolute confidence that most prominent journalists and media figures are working with the security bodies. They add that this or that journalist, or this or that television presenter, are “security agents” and receive instructions before appearing on screen or writing their articles. And when they disagree on screen, their disagreement reflects a conflict between security bodies.
When one asks conspiracy proponents how they know this and what proof or evidence is there they immediately reply with a flurry of typical answers: “This is quite well known,” “Just follow his standpoints,” “Didn’t you hear the leaks concerning so and so?” or “Can anybody attack the government and the president in this way, except if he is given a green light?”
My own persuasion is that the talk regarding a conspiracy against the media does not have any basis, and those incidents and events may have more than one interpretation. Thus, it is better that the government and the security bodies clarify matters, because ignoring it will only lead to crises and problems Egypt has no need of.
