Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: Online Journalism Between the Anvil of Practice and the Hammer of the Law
Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: Online Journalism Between the Anvil of Practice and the Hammer of the Law
DR-BAHAA HELMY·MONDAY, JULY 4, 2016
Egypt has entered the world of the digital revolution through its widest gate, and the Egyptian citizen has become one of the heaviest users of the World Wide Web. Statistics from the Ministry of Communications indicate that the number of internet users in Egypt has exceeded fifty million, and the Arab Knowledge Economy Report 2015–2016 indicates that internet usage rates will rise to 55% by 2018, compared with 37.5% in 2014.
This has led to a boom in online journalism and the emergence of many digital media organizations comprising several outlets, such as «a print newspaper, a website, a weekly magazine and a sports one, an intellectual magazine, a car magazine or a women's magazine, etc.». A large share of readers have become browsers, and the professional journalist has become a citizen journalist. It is enough to type the word «newspaper» into a search engine to see thousands of online newspapers, including print newspapers published in an electronic page once distribution and sales are finished. Looking at the concept of online journalism, which relies on the World Wide Web as an intermediary between it and the browser, compared with print journalism, the matter seems controversial, because online journalism shares with traditional media the concept, general principles and objectives, but differs in the means of delivering content in a distinctive and effective way, perhaps one more interactive with the browser.
The online journalist bears legal responsibility for his professional practice within the online newspaper he works for, and must abide by national laws, without any responsibility on the online newspaper, since there is no legal framework regulating its work. This is an imbalance between rights and duties, which results in journalists being threatened with the hammer of the law for offenses under the Egyptian Penal Code. Bearing a duty requires first enjoying a right.
Article 70 of the 2014 Egyptian Constitution provides that «Freedom of the press and of printing and of paper, visual, audio and electronic publication is guaranteed. Egyptians, whether natural or legal persons, public or private, have the right to own and publish newspapers and to establish visual, audio and digital media outlets. Newspapers may be published once notification is given as regulated by law. The law shall regulate the procedures for establishing and owning visual and radio broadcasting stations and online newspapers.
The second paragraph of Article 77 of the Constitution provides that only one syndicate may be established to regulate a profession.
This means that new legislation for the media and the press in its various forms, including online journalism, must be issued to implement the provisions of the Constitution, following the example of countries that preceded us in this direction, such as the Electronic Publishing Law in Kuwait, the regulation of online journalism in Morocco, and the Ministry of Culture and Information in Saudi Arabia taking charge of regulating and licensing online newspapers.
Our call to regulate online journalism may provoke activists on forums, blogs and online newspapers, as well as activists on websites and social media networks, who may accuse us of seeking to control internet space and restrict media freedoms. We would like to point out that calling for the regulation of online journalism, the licensing of newspapers and the registration of the journalists working in it with the Journalists' Syndicate does not mean calling for restricting it; rather, it means the constitutional and legal protection of online journalism and those who work in it, and their commitment to their duties, rights and responsibilities and to the journalistic code of honor, in addition to the syndicate's responsibility for qualifying them, extending technical support to them, setting rules for examining complaints against any of them and defending them. Social media sites and the information activities carried out on them do not fall within online journalism; they are activities subject to the Penal Code and lie outside the scope of online journalism.