{"id":18377,"date":"2024-10-19T15:20:34","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T13:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=18377"},"modified":"2026-10-08T23:27:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T21:27:46","slug":"online-journalism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/online-journalism-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Journalists’ Demands: Towards Amending the Syndicate’s Membership Requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, journalist Sara Adel launched a group on Facebook, coinciding with the meeting of the Journalists’ Syndicate’s registration committee for the trainee register. The campaign aimed to demand the right of journalists working for news websites to be registered on the syndicate’s registers, which require a work contract with a print newspaper accredited by the syndicate. This requirement places restrictions on many journalists, especially with the decline of print journalism in recent years. Journalists Mohamed Zakaria and Sara El-Hanafy later joined the campaign.<\/p>\n

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The campaign drew the attention of the Journalists’ Syndicate, as the head of the syndicate, Khaled El-Balshy, affirmed digital journalists’ right to union protection. On 1 October, the head of the syndicate met a delegation of digital journalists and explained, in statements relayed by journalist Maged Atef on his Facebook page, that the syndicate council had already begun steps to develop the registration regulations to guarantee the rights of digital journalists and prevent impersonators from slipping in. He also indicated that the proposed amendments would be presented to the next general assembly for approval. El-Balshy stressed that the Sixth General Conference of the Press will devote a session to discussing the situation of digital journalists and ways of bringing them under union protection.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At the syndicate council’s last meeting, what had been agreed during the head of the syndicate’s meeting with digital journalists was implemented: the council decided to activate Article 12 of the 1970 syndicate law and open applications for registration on the affiliates’ register. A committee was also formed to draw up regulations guaranteeing union protection for genuine journalists and preventing impersonators.<\/p>\n

The announcement of the decision divided journalists. While some supported it and launched the hashtag (Syndicate membership is the right of digital journalists) to demand union protection, others within the general assembly opposed it, arguing that it opens the door to brokering and the entry of unqualified people. Opponents collected about 70 signatures on a memorandum rejecting the decision, and four council members announced that they had voted against it: Hussein El-Zanaty, Ayman Abdel Meguid, Doaa El-Naggar and Abdel Raouf Khalifa. Meanwhile, three members were absent from the meeting: Mohamed Yahya Youssef, Ibrahim Abu Kila and Mohamed Kharaga. The opposing and absent members include a group from the Correcting the Path Front, founded after police forces stormed the Journalists’ Syndicate in 2016, which opposes the Independence Current front to which the head of the syndicate and the supporting members belong.<\/p>\n

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Recommended reading:<\/strong> Is the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate Fair to Those Working in Digital Journalism?<\/a><\/p>\n

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Activating the Law<\/h3>\n

Khaled El-Balshy, head of the Journalists’ Syndicate, says the debate over the council’s decision is healthy and commendable, because naturally any decision will have supporters and opponents, and opposition to the syndicate council is acceptable; the council and its head may be right or wrong in their decisions.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Zawia3, the head of the syndicate acknowledges the right of all journalists practising the profession through a digital medium to full syndicate membership with all its rights and privileges, but, according to him, this requires a legislative amendment that is not currently possible and is being worked on. He adds: “Until that becomes possible, all we can do is extend union protection to our colleagues through the affiliates’ register, which is a register that exists in the law, and what the council did was simply activate one of the law’s dormant articles. We are a syndicate that constantly demands that the authorities activate laws preventing imprisonment in publishing cases and on freedom of information, so how can we demand the activation of laws while we ourselves suspend articles of the law?”<\/p>\n

He explains that activating the dormant article requires drawing up regulations for it: “I am not the one who will draw up the regulations, but they will include the conditions and controls governing the admission of digital journalists, according to controls that ensure impersonators do not slip in.”<\/p>\n

Regarding the demand for full membership, El-Balshy points out that membership is a right for digital colleagues practising the profession, and what is currently available is extending union protection, which enables the syndicate to defend and negotiate colleagues’ rights, whether in cases of arrest, such as the case of journalist Karim Asaad, or in negotiating their rights with the institutions they work for.<\/p>\n

The head of the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate rejects the claim that the dispute over the decision is linked to arrangements for the elections scheduled for next March, saying: “I cannot question the intentions of the colleagues who object.”<\/p>\n

At the same time, Hisham Younis, head of the syndicate’s registration committee, says the decision to activate the affiliates’ register will end the chaos of impersonation, because once genuine journalists who truly practise the profession are included, there will be an opportunity to fight impersonators and live-streaming and TikTok “journalists”.<\/p>\n

Regarding the controls that are supposed to be set for accepting journalists on the affiliates’ register, he adds that the basic condition is a continuous archive from a news website that has premises and a stable financial position and pays journalists their wages, and that the journalist does not practise any profession other than journalism.<\/p>\n

Hisham points out that the register exists, and dozens of journalists have entered it through appellate registration rulings because Article 12 of the law was suspended, and all the latest decision does is regulate journalists’ entry through it according to specific controls.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> The Journalists’ Syndicate Versus Legislation Restricting Freedoms<\/a><\/p>\n

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Opponents of the Decision<\/h3>\n

On the other hand, Ayman Abdel Meguid, a member of the registration committee and one of those who rejected the decision to activate the affiliates’ register, says he rejects dividing journalists into digital and print, as the basis is practising the profession, whether through a print or a digital medium, and when the syndicate law was drafted, print was the only medium that existed; that is why its articles were drafted on this basis.<\/p>\n

Speaking to us, he acknowledges the right of journalists practising the profession through a digital medium to full syndicate membership, granting them all rights, including the technology allowance and services, rather than opening the affiliates’ register, which the legislator created for contributors to journalistic work, such as article writers, and not for journalists who practise the profession fully.<\/p>\n

Ayman points out that digital journalists join the syndicate normally, because all institutions with print publications have a digital version, and not all of those working there write in the print version, yet they have the right to join the syndicate through ordinary registration. He explains that the decision to activate the affiliates’ register gives many people from other professions who report for fake platforms the right to apply to join the register while practising professions other than journalism, and opens the door to many impersonators.<\/p>\n

The registration committee member stresses that the medium makes no difference in practising the profession; there are many print newspapers that are not coded with the syndicate and from which no journalists are accepted, and there are newspapers that were coded and then stopped having journalists accepted from them because they no longer met the registration conditions. He notes that the websites that have premises and a budget, pay journalists’ salaries and social insurance, have existed for more than five years, have syndicate members as 70% of their staff, and whose structure includes an editor-in-chief, managing editors and section heads who are syndicate members, number only three news websites.<\/p>\n

Ayman Abdel Meguid rejects the claim that the law cannot be amended now, noting that the law has many problems, not only the issue of registering digital journalists; preventing the profession’s veterans, who spent their lives in it, from voting in elections is another problem. He asks: “Why are all these articles not discussed at the general conference, with proposals presented to the next general assembly and then taken to the House of Representatives? The crisis of digital journalists has existed for years, so why rush to a temporary solution now instead of waiting three months until the general assembly convenes, amending the law and solving it radically?”<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> Gaza Brings the Journalists’ Syndicate Back to the Political Forefront<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Discussion from Within<\/h3>\n

Commenting, journalist Maged Atef<\/strong> says that journalists working for news websites represent a large proportion of those working in the profession, at a time when no one reads print newspapers, and therefore “we are facing an existing situation, and a group of these journalists decided to meet the head of the Journalists’ Syndicate to discuss this crisis.”<\/p>\n

He adds: “Away from any flattery, I see Khaled El-Balshy as someone who sides with reality and not with the future, and reality says there are digital journalists who have no union protection and are out on the street, so protection had to be provided. But the problem is that there are journalists worried about the allowance, an amount paid to journalists by the syndicate or the state, and many members of the general assembly fear digital journalists sharing the allowance with them or its abolition, especially since Egyptian journalists’ salaries are extremely low. So the solution was to activate the affiliates’ register, which guarantees legal protection for digital journalists without touching the general assembly’s main fear.”<\/p>\n

Maged explains that there are voices among digital journalists demanding full membership, which is their right, but this requires amending the syndicate law, which is not easy because it must go to the general assembly and then to parliament, and the outcome depends on the authorities’ own policy; the best solution at present is affiliation, because it provides the legal umbrella and reassures the general assembly that the allowance will not be touched. He called on digital journalists who consider this step a circumvention of their demand for full membership to tell him how these demands could be implemented, and to be realistic in their demands.<\/p>\n

He stresses that the digital journalists’ file is important and should have been discussed long ago, and that for this discussion to happen a step had to be taken. The most important thing achieved so far is that the discussion is taking place inside the syndicate rather than outside it, because the file has been discussed for ten years but outside the syndicate; now the issue has moved inside the syndicate’s walls, which is an important step, and he believes El-Balshy and his council are working to correct wrong situations.<\/p>\n

Regarding the legal characterisation of the council’s decision, he says what the head of the syndicate did was activate a dormant article of the law. “The register exists in the syndicate law, and recently university professors were allowed to join it, as well as Egyptian journalists working abroad in exchange for USD 1,000, and no one objected. So why stand in the way of the third category, especially since print journalism will end in the future? Standing in the way of digital journalists joining is standing in the way of development and time.”<\/p>\n

Regarding the controls, he stresses that registration should be directly from the journalist to the syndicate, not through a letter from the website’s management, because that would be replacing one master with another and would allow website managements to enslave digital journalists, as happens at print newspapers. There are negotiable conditions, such as the length of the archive the journalist submits and the websites whose journalists are allowed to join.<\/p>\n

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An Insufficient Step<\/h3>\n
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Mohamed Zakaria, one of the founders of the campaign “Syndicate membership is the right of digital journalists”, tells us that the campaign began through a group on “Facebook” and a hashtag carrying the group’s name, and during that period the syndicate did not contact the campaign. There were scattered statements about two paths to resolve the crisis: the first amending the law, and the second the affiliation path until the crisis is resolved. The issue remained in circulation until journalist Maged Atef wrote about the crisis on his page, and the head of the syndicate called him to meet.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He adds that the syndicate neither contacted the campaign nor announced the meeting with digital journalists: “We were surprised by the meeting, which included a number of digital colleagues and emerged publicly with an agreement on the affiliation path.”<\/p>\n

Mohamed stresses that the affiliation step is not a final solution to the crisis, noting that the syndicate council did not deal with the crisis at the required level, because it is not normal for a syndicate that demands rights and change to be governed, without any change, by a law from 1970 that requires journalists to be members of the Arab Socialist Union, which no longer exists.<\/p>\n

He explains that there are fears about amending the law under the current House of Representatives and with a general assembly that rejects the presence of digital journalists, and these are legitimate fears, but the discussion under way since the day before yesterday shows that a large part of the general assembly rejects the minimum of digital journalists’ rights, namely affiliation; so fighting the full battle is the best solution. He adds: “I admit it is difficult under the current political situation, but it is not impossible, especially since the law has many other problems, including the unfair registration conditions that place journalists at the mercy of newspaper managements and make them work as forced labour to obtain the syndicate registration letter.”<\/p>\n

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There are a large number of Facebook groups concerned with journalists. In the 48 hours following the syndicate council’s decision, these groups filled with opinions for and against it. Opponents argued that the decision would open the door to brokers and impersonators to obtain the Journalists’ Syndicate card, or that it would lead to the abolition of the allowance, while supporters argued that ordinary registration has many problems, especially brokers and fake newspapers that do not publish and whose only reason for existing is to obtain money from those wishing to join the syndicate, and that digital journalists practise the profession and have the right to full membership, not just affiliation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A Climate Hostile to Freedoms<\/h3>\n

Journalist Eman Auf, one of the founders of the “Egyptian Women Journalists” initiative, which is concerned with the rights of male and female journalists, believes the debate about opening the affiliates’ register to digital journalists is a positive and necessary development. She pointed out that this file remained dormant for many years, and when it was activated, it was done under strict conditions that prevented many journalists wishing to join the syndicate from becoming affiliates.<\/p>\n

Eman Auf adds that this debate reflects the fact that the traditional form of journalism is about to end, and that room must be made for the young generations who have made tangible achievements in the profession. She believes the fears raised stem from the gains journalists have obtained, especially under the current political and economic conditions; opening the door to a large number of journalists and expanding the union umbrella may raise concerns about the allowance and services such as medical care and housing.<\/p>\n

She continues: “The syndicate did nothing but activate an existing legal article, and announced that it would draw up regulations and controls to ensure that only genuine journalists enter, which is an area that requires the participation of the general assembly to guarantee controls that protect the profession and prevent impersonators. Also, the affiliates’ register does not grant privileges, so there is no fear for the gains. The syndicate’s strength depends on increasing the number of its genuine members.”<\/p>\n

Eman affirms her support for full membership for digital journalists, provided they meet the registration conditions of professional practice, a journalistic archive and good conduct. But she believes the problem lies in the current law, which limits the definition of a journalist to someone working for a print publication. She explains that now is not the right time to amend the law because of the climate hostile to freedoms, noting that amending the law under these conditions could produce another law that harms journalists’ interests, as happened with the Criminal Procedure Law. She stresses the need to discuss the law and prepare a draft amendment specific to the syndicate, with the general assembly standing behind the head of the syndicate to secure a law that serves journalists.<\/p>\n

So far, the regulations or controls for digital journalists’ affiliation to the Journalists’ Syndicate have not been issued, and until then Zakaria and hundreds of other journalists whom luck led to practise journalism through a digital medium will remain waiting for controls that will give them only a meagre fraction of their rights, a fraction that, small as it is, many print journalists are not happy with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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