Amid increasing government crackdown on free media, award-winning journalist and Mada Masr Co-Founder and Chief Editor Lina Attalah examined the rise and influence of independent journalism in the Arab world at Northwestern Qatar’s Hiwar Speaker Series, a community platform dedicated to building understanding through dialogue with thought and industry leaders around the world.
Launched in 2013, Mada Masr is a Cairo-based, independent news website that has become a model for independent journalism. In a conversation with Professor Zeina Awad, Attalah reflected on her work leading the publication to the forefront of investigative journalism and the future of independent journalism in the region.
Attalah began by recounting her time as a university student in Cairo after the second Palestinian Intifada and how it has shaped her political awareness as an activist and student reporter. “Campuses in Cairo were on fire,” said Attalah. “It was a moment of political normalcy in general, but then the only activism that was possible was the kind of activism that was calling for the rights of Palestinians or self-determination and statehood, and of course, the right of return.” She added, “My years on campus were full of such crucial moments because, again, two years after, we had the war on Iraq.”
Inspired by her years on campus, Attalah said her desire to continue activism led her to join Al-Masry Al-Youm as a journalist. “It was one of very few privately owned media that allowed space for a narrative that is not fully aligned with that of the state,” noted Attalah, who went on to explain how such spaces allowed journalists to cover the revolution in 2011. “We were there mediating voices of the people, voices of the streets, trying to imagine what could happen in a country that has lived in this kind of regime when a revolution of this magnitude erupts,” she added.
But soon after the 2011 uprisings, Attalah said these spaces came under mounting government pressure and explained how the publication was forced to shut down, and she and the journalists working there were let go as a result. “2013 was a moment of deep political transformation in the country, and we knew it was going to be the beginning of something even harder than the years we lived before,” said Attalah. “There was a moment where even that space was not possible anymore, and they [government] started trying to censor the work we do in the newspaper up until a moment when they said, ‘ok, there is no place for you. You must go now.’”
Amid the transformative political landscape of Egypt, Attalah said standing still and being unemployed wasn't an option for her and her fellow journalists. "When the newspaper closed its doors on us, the group of us that were ousted thought we didn’t have a choice; we had to set up our own thing,” said Attalah. Reflecting on the turning point that led to the birth of Mada Masr in 2013, she said, “Back then, we knew we were going against the massive current in terms of political control. We knew it was going to be something very different than anything we had lived before, but at the same time, we knew there was no other option for us to stand still and be unemployed when the country was going through a massive transformation for which we needed to create a record and bear witness.”
In the early years of Mada Masr, Attalah noted how the state of the country after the revolution shaped their editorial priorities, saying, “We felt that 2013 was the beginning of a complete blackout of what is really at stake and what is really going on.” She went on to explain how they prioritized meticulous news gathering despite being a small team with limited financial means. “It was going to be a difficult choice because news gathering is an expensive operation,” said Attalah. “We had to invest our own severance pay from our previous employers in order to get started and work.”
As Mada Masr grew and gained recognition for its independent reporting, Attalah explained how the challenges facing the publication evolved in parallel with the tightening restrictions imposed by the authorities and the publication’s focus on reporting on elections, corruption, and the inner workings of authoritarianism. “With time, we grew, and more people started following our stories, and this is precisely the time when the authorities started feeling this was not the kind of niche organization that they shouldn’t be paying attention to.” With time, Attalah said Mada Masr began facing censorship attempts and legal obstacles, noting that, “Ever since 2019, there hasn’t been a year that we don’t go to the prosecutor for investigation, interrogations, questionings, and so on.”
Despite these challenges, Attalah emphasized the resilience of the team and the necessity to keep pushing forward collectively. “We are also in this situation where we are ‘free,’ and we have the name and the brand and mutual learning and institution that was built in the past ten years, so we don’t have an option but to keep going,” said Attalah. “The stakes are high for Mada Masr to end today because of the quality journalism that [it] has given this country and this region in the last ten years, and I do rely on that as a source of power that empowers us, especially in moments of danger [like] some of the ones we have been living recently.”
In light of the ongoing war in Gaza, Attalah noted the intricate interplay between the universal and the particular in shaping the experience of independent Arab journalists and the independent journalism practice in the region. “The Palestinian question is a question that has formed us politically,” said Attalah. In underscoring the significance of the unique perspective emanating from within the region, she emphasized that this gaze is steeped in history and understanding. “I think that there is power to this gaze that is happening from the position of the inside,” said Attalah. “It's not [just] a gaze over the immediate; it's also a gaze that is nurtured with history and understanding, and it all amounts to a completely different epistemological experience with the journalism that gets produced from this place [the Arab world].”
Lina Attalah joins a list of prominent intellectuals and international media experts discussing topics in journalism and geopolitics as part of the school’s Hiwar Speaker Series. Past Hiwar speakers include Refugee rights activist Hassan Akkad; Amaney A. Jamal, dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and Edwards S. Sanford professor of politics at Princeton University; Ece Temelkuran, award-winning Turkish novelist and political commentator; Winston Mano and viola c. milton, editors of the Routledge Handbook of African Media and Communication Studies; and most recently renowned filmmaker, director, producer, and writer Ramona S. Diaz.
