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"...Mr Mubarak was dealt a significant setback as the state-controlled Al-Ahram, Egypt's second oldest newspaper and one of the most famous media publications in the Middle East, abandoned its long-standing position of slavish support for the regime.
"In a front-page leader, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Osama Saraya hailed the 'nobility' of what he described as a 'revolution' and demanded that the government embark of irreversible constitutional and legislative changes."*
On BBC World News Television, Osama Saraya, editor in chief, smiled broadly and spoke enthusiastically as he spoke about the next few days of change in the newspaper: "a new...newspaper" changing in a country of "7,000 years of history," as one protester stated today. In Saraya's statement, there was no indication of fear that there might be military tampering with a leading government newspaper. Evident was a confident assumption that real change has come, including freedom of the press.
This indicates the editor's expectation that Al-Ahram will be free to report and editorialize about local and national events now, and will not fear being filtered as it follows and analyzes fluid movements in the air. This freedom free nations take for granted, and, as Davis Merritt wrote about in his book, Knightfall, there has been a change in the West regarding "the role of the press in a democracy with the pressure to produce profits." Apparently, Egyptian journalists have yearned to be free to grapple with such problems. Now they expect more independence to do their work, and without fear. That is another part of the jubilant celebration and hope in Cairo and across Egypt on February 11, 2011.
* source: The Telegraph, UK, about Al-Ahram newspaper, Cairo.
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