Beirut-Two journalists whose online work is said to have contributed to eventual political change in Egypt and Tunisia are questioning the continued role of traditional mass media in providing an effective platform for expression of political dissent in their countries. Egyptian journalist and blogger, Nora Younis, speaking to the Trinidad Guardian in Beirut where she addressed free expression advocates on the impact of social media in the fall of the Hosni Mubarak regime, said the mainstream media in Egypt have suffered major hits on their credibility.
"They are trying to say they are the post-revolution media, so they simply bring young faces and put them on the screen," she said. "But this is not enough." "They are exercising self-censorship and lack direction," she said. "They need to re-invent themselves from inside. The problems they face will not disappear." Younis is a multimedia editor at Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper in Egypt and a former correspondent for the Washington Post. She is a prolific blogger on a wide range of social and political issues who was given the Human Rights First Award in 2008 for her fearless online reports on human rights abuses in Egypt.
She said mainstream, traditional media were not entirely "irrelevant" but would lose their effectiveness over the coming decades. "I don't think print journalism will disappear in the Arab world in the next 50 years," she said. Renowned Tunisian writer/journalist, Naziha Rejiba, said there was need for reform in the work of the mainstream media in the Arab world. She currently edits an online journal, Kalima, which is banned in her own country.
She said effecting change in countries all over the world required media platforms interested in "mass education" and opportunities to express and debate ideas. "People need not be afraid of totalitarian regimes and dictatorships," she told reporters. "I will keep writing," she said, "but in a new way.
"I was writing for the resistance now I will be writing to change the society," Rejiba added. In 2009, she was given an International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).