Manufacturing scandals and media excitement

Poor is the one whose sin has been exposed in hypocritical surroundings that face the sharp blades of gloating and defamation. Those who enjoy the scandals of the people around them forget they are not angels themselves and not prophets, and if they were honest, they would all recall "dark moments"  in some stage of their lives. And here we differentiate between the "sin" of which only the prophets are infallible and "crime" which is originally an "abnormality" of human values and ethics. Whoever among us is sinless, raise their hands so that we would give them the status of prophets and righteous. Did anyone raise their hand? Often in a human’s life there are moments of weakness, recklessness and miscalculations. It’s almost impossible to live without even one sin. Who among us is devoid of transient sins, big or small? But what makes some have joy in a person’s "mistake" and spur the effort to promote it, and what accompanies it with rumours that increases this person’s tragedy and his surroundings from family and small community? What values, morals or principles are we talking about, while those among us who are thrilled with the scandal and do their best to promote it, add lots of spice to it? What culture is it that makes the "scandal" common talk and an opportunity to gloat, joke and fall in society’s eyes, which is already eaten by all forms of hypocrisy and deception? We actually live in the "era of scandals", especially since modern technology allows some to fabricate news for the gossip mills. If you see a society that celebrates a scandal and makes a "daily meal" of it, then you are in front of a poor society, which turns a blind eye to real issues in development, education and management to devote itself to the "scandals", throwing about speeches on virtue, like "Whoever covers up for a muslim, Allah would cover up for them”. The Egyptian press has failed in the exam against the Arab media, which was built on the shoulders of Egyptians, as there were continuous attempts to strangle and bury all the press experiments who succeeded to issue new young newspapers for the sake of some national newspapers, suffering young journalists in Egypt who have turned into mere slaves in the giants’ market and demanding the need to study all the problems such as the concerns of the colleague corresondents in governorates, who upon them depends the distribution of any newspaper through the search of opportunity, finding it and colliding with some press brolers in the homeland in which we live, and which lives inside us. In this country, the economy lies in the hands of a group of businessmen who are accused ot many things and who control everything... and the country’s crisis is reflected in the cultural crisis... it is reflected on the political crisis.. and this country becomes "fake" and consequently the press is also fake. It is no more the same press we read about in the beginning or mid-century...neither is it the journalism of Mostafa Amin or the old generation. In the end it becomes fake journalism of a fake country. We discover through this crisis that there is a general crisis in legislation in Egyptian society... political and social legislation.. and the journalism legislation comes from there. The quantity of the legislation that criminalise journalism and makes the journalist very sensitive comprise more than 13 laws and articles that all criminalise journalism and make the journalist not see nor hear nor speak. The legislative crisis in journalism is very dangerous and the result is the spread of the resigning model compiled before being appointed so that they can be toppled whenever wanted. The second crisis, from my point of view, in the crisis of the generation or the generations of journalists who didn’t learn, and as we owe the old generations we also owe the new generation of journalists. Part of the new generation’s problem is that they didn’t learn the "press work" as it is not only a hobby or a talent or just a technical thing... this generation didn’t learn journalism well... it suffers injustice and was pushed only to learn how to make a living, working in multiple newspapers. There should be also a clear position in order to set important principles in Egyptian journalism, most important the literature of dialogue and drafting news honestly, especially since we scan newspapers for scandalous news. There is a very serious problem faced by journalism and young journalists where some of them try to succeed quickly without making any effort through searching for cheap excitement in simple accidents. It is a pity that a young journalist’s success would be based on a certain kind of journalism which convinces readers that evil has begun to sweep our lives. These journalists should realise that if our people is full of these exciting incidents, it is also full of dozens of good models to follow. Where are the journalists of the good models? Of the honest farmer? Of the hardworking employee? Of the good student? Of the eminent scientist? This environment where the journalist grew up and which represents 99.5 percent of Egyptian society. Reality doesn’t come out of lying, forgery, fabricated images or distorting words because such means will not draw a national model entitled with freedom and fairness against the vandals, conspirators and hypocrites, and devote only fake democracy proclaimed by satellite channels that were strained to drag the situation in Egypt towards chaos at all levels. Some satellite channels fell from their thrones of professionalism and credibility to the lowliness of lies and forgery. Actually we don’t know what their feelings will be while seeing fake images and fabricated videos, whose reality will be unfolded in public.. we don’t want to know.... we don’t expect them to apologise for more than one sin against professionalism and credibility, after the exposure of this fraud. Some responsible satellite channels would say: “Rhese mistake were driven by good intentions”, and may mean supporting the Egyptian people in its war against the regime while never accepting Israel and never giving up the resistance. This media scandal, as we like calling it, is not an internal affair in order to avoid discussion... as the consequent dangerous damage doesn’t only affect the situation in Egypt and disfigures it, but also creates a reality for Arab revolutions whose credibility, demands and means are doubted and brings us back to square one. It puts us all - or at least most of us in - the position of accusation; questions our patriotism and unity, people and security elements, keeping us busy defending ourselves instead of defending our country. -- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.