“When will Discipline Return to Egyptian Media?”

Coverage: Alaa Mohamed Hossam

Ramy Radwan discusses the different media issues in Alexandria Sporting Club on Thursday, 8th of April.

Alexandria sporting club was honored to have the TV presenter Ramy Radwan as a guest in a very fruitful seminar. The seminar was held on Thursday, the eighth of April under the title of: “When will discipline return to Egyptian media?” with Ms. Abier Mourad, head of the club’s Media Committee, as an interviewer.

After introducing Ramy Radwan as the TV presenter of ‘sabah on’, an economy show and most recently ‘el beit beitak’ on Ten, the seminar started by asking the audience how they felt about Egyptian media. There was an agreement from the audience as a whole that the media is having its worse era regarding its content and the media ethics. As one of the audience said, “Nowadays the media has clogged my appetite.”

Entering the area of discussion, Radwan and the audience both discussed what they saw as undisciplined media mentioning different media problems. For instance, not having any kind of media directed towards the outer world which lead to letting the world speak on our behalf and make false assumptions. To solve this problem we need to establish a worldwide media channel. For achieving this kind of media channel; it needs to be covered by the government as it’s hugely costly, but doesn’t offer as huge returning.

Moreover, there isn’t any channel that allows the youth to speak their minds freely since every program and every presenter wants the guest who will get him higher rates of viewers and advertisers. Even if they host one of the youth it’s usually because a big problem he has which leads to the same thing, propaganda for the presenter and the show.

Also one of the most important problems in the media now is business owned media. Where most media companies are biased and working to their owner’s interest. Some also allow advertisers to have some control over the displayed content as not to lose the recurrent coming from those advertisements.

“If a politician becomes an interviewer, who are we going to interview?” said Ramy Radwan when he was discussing the issue of non-media graduates working in the media. He believes that if a doctor wants to present a show about medicine it’s his right, however, he has to study the basics of media before doing it.

In addition, he also believes that the channels owned by the government are made to speak for the government and present its voice to normal people in the society. Whereas, it’s not their role to oppose or object. This is mainly the private sector’s role. While Ms. Rania Radwan thinks that “the presenter who works for a governmental channel is not only representor to the government but also the way of dealing with them differs greatly from the other presenters.”

In the end of the seminar the doors where open to more personal question where Ramy talked more about his wife Donia Samir Ghanem and their daughter Kayla. He also mentioned that his future plans include working for the new Egyptian channel being established by a group of investors.

“To show different sides of the issue in order to let the viewer decide what he believes is the right way to practice media, yet being 100% objective does not exist except in utopia,” said Ramy Radwan.