Media is an important factor of public opinion formation, being free or otherwise. Egypt was the victim of centralized or controlled media since the 1952 coup (I personally feel that media was fairly developing before this date). Any one can imagine how can controlled media be so destructive to the abilities and talents of any nation. Media, fundamentally, must be free.
Any country controlled by military men hate free media to their bones. I think even in thr western democracies, officialis in in the security field (military or police) hate media to some extent. Maybe because of the being-exposded feeling. In the last two decades Egypt was witnessing an increase in the freedom level in difference media forms, beginning with the satellite channels, then after them the independentnewspaper. I see that the most important terms in the media equation are: money and credibility (credibility here includes the mass influence).
I want to talk about about a very recent example of what I can call adolescnce or idiocy of supposedly free (independent) forms of media. The 6th of April strike. I really don't know if this is a trend of personification used differently by the normal people (as an easy way of dealing with things), or by the seucirity (to make the government heads happy by oppressing the the personified ones). In the end of the day, the press used all of its power to make the strike personifed in a girl who found herself in the middle of unexpected extraordinary circumstances with no real reason other than being accidently the founder of the controversial strike group without being the real person who suggested the whole thing. This press mass idiocy, next to the equivalent idiot policy for the State Security, was the main reason of detaining Israa Abdel Fattah plus all the fuss that happened, and all the "chaos" the press got in.
The credibility of media is measured by the personal scale within every person receiving the media material, but the media must run after the truth, not after high noise show business. Show business destoys the eopes of freedom in our oppressed countries.
