President Mubarak resigns

 

Egyptian anti-government protesters shout in front of the Egyptian television headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis

Being a person who loves to watch the news, I was in front of my television when the news broke that President Mubarak resigned. I was watching network news and I began to wonder how other news sources were covering this historic event. So, I set out to explore publications I don’t look at or read on a daily basis. I thought it was interesting to see how their coverage differed. With an event such as this one, I expected the news coverage to be pretty much the standard hard news lede followed by some important details: where, when, why, how.  

The hard news lede is what I found when I went to the “Huffington Post’s” website and read their coverage of the event. Here’s the lede:

Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday, bowing down after a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands.

That covers the basic facts: President Mubarak stepped down as a result of anti-government protests. Basic, and straight to the point. I like this kind of lede because I don’t have to read through a lot of fluff to get to the good stuff. I know what happened and why by the time I get to the end of the first sentence.

“The New Yorker” had a different kind of lede to their coverage (which I would expect, given it’s a news magazine). Here’s how they did it:

Who is president of Egypt? Not Hosni Mubarak, as of a few minutes ago.

That’s catchy. It’s different and definitely grabs my attention, but I still know the very basic fact: Mubarak resigned. Because the first sentence is attention-grabbing, I want to know more. So, I read further to discover the speech Mubarak gave last night didn’t satisfy the people. But the article also asks who will step up to power now that Mubarak is gone? This piece is written less like hard news, like the article from the “Huffington Post,” but it still allows the reader to understand the basic information and leaves the reader wondering what will happen next.

The third place I went for Mubarak resignation coverage was the “National Review Online.” The thing I especially liked about this was the lede was the headline. And the headline was a question that was answered in the first line of the story. Here’s the headline:

What Will the Military Do Next? Sack the Cabinet?

The NRO answered the question but told its readers to “take it with a grain of salt.” It then quoted preliminary reports speculating what will happen next. So, rather than telling the readers the backstory including protests and riots, the NRO looked ahead and asked its readers what they think will happen next, and they provided one prediction. I like this style because it’s something different. When I get to their coverage, I don’t have to sift through a lot of detail about protests that I already know about, and instead I can start thinking about what might happen in the coming days and weeks.

Finally, I looked at the coverage “The Washington Times” provided its readers. It followed the hard news lede template that the “Huffington Post” used. Here’s the lede:

Egypt‘s Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday after 29 years in power, bowing to a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands.

Again, it gives the same basic information while providing context to the readers. I don’t have anything against hard news ledes, they work for stories like this. But, it doesn’t give me anything different from other publications or television reports I see. Still good, though.

I like to explore the vast world of journalism on big news days such as today because it gives me a chance to get all the facts I can gather and make sense of them myself. I could have gone to just one source today to get the information about President Mubarak. Instead, though I went to four different sources (five, if you count the television coverage I saw when the story broke), and gathered different tidbits of information that I couldn’t get in just one story. It’s fascinating to see how different minds work when writing a lede sentence. Looking at how other reporters write their ledes helps me think about how I would structure my own lede if I were to write a story on this subject. I think I would try and go for a lede that draws readers in to my story, but also one that gives fact. I like “The New Yorker’s” lede the best, I’d probably want to use something like that.

How journalists are fairing covering the unrest in Egypt

From The News International

UPDATE: Read about Greg Palkot’s experience in Egypt here.

As I get closer to graduation and getting my “real” job, I find myself thinking more and more about what kind of reporter I want to be. I think highly of the journalists who cover international news and politics and routinely go overseas. For me, that takes a lot of courage and trust in your skills not only as a journalist, but also as an American navigating through a foreign country. As I’ve watched the turmoil in Egypt unfold the last couple of days, I find myself wondering what it must be like as a journalist being the one who is sent to bring the latest information to the viewers.

Obviously, many American journalists are in Egypt to cover the violence. Mobs of pro-Egyptian government supporters have beaten foreign journalists and threatened their lives. While many have been hurt, others have been detained by the Egyptian government. It seems journalists are caught in the middle of the pro-Egyptian government supporters and those who oppose. As people sent to cover the news, the journalists have now become the targets as well.

Dozens of journalists, including ones from The Washington Post and The New York Times, were reported detained by security forces. One Greek print journalist was stabbed in the leg with a screwdriver, and a photographer was punched in the face. The Arabic news network Al-Arabiya pleaded for the army to protect its offices and journalists, and Al-Jazeera said two of its correspondents were attacked.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/03/gunfire-pounds-anti-mubarak-protest-camp-cairo/#ixzz1CwKdXY82

At this point, the White House called for the Egyptian government to release American journalists. The White House also condemned the pro-Egyptian government supporters for detaining journalists during this time of violence and urest.

According to a Fox News article, the Egyptian government has accused journalists of being sympathetic to the anti-government protestors who want President Hosni Mubarak to step down now, rather than finish out his term. As a result, journalists like Fox News corespondent Greg Palkot and his photographer, as well as Fox Business Netowrk’s Ashley Webster, were beaten and taken to the hospital for their injuries.

Both Palkot and Wiig were hospitalized overnight after running into a crowd of pro-government demonstrators. The two were severely beaten but have since been released from the hospital.

That was after Palkot, covering the growing violence at Tahrir Square, was confronted by several pro- and anti-government protesters. In the middle of the chaos, Palkot said that 30 rioters, with the help of an Egyptian military officer, fended off a large crowd of people and allowed Palkot and his cameraman to slip down a back alley and into a small hotel.

Webster told Fox News that security burst into his hotel room and forced the cameraman off the balcony, shouting that they will kill them.

“This crowd has been very angry toward journalists,” he told Fox News.

Many other journalists and networks have faced opposition from the Egyptian government and have been accused of providing slanted coverage.

From the Huffington Post:

The pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera said Monday that six of its journalists have been detained in Egypt after authorities ordered the closure of the network’s Cairo office.

The News International provides a small story out of Paris that provides a little more insight on journalists captured at this point.

A French international news channel said on Wednesday that three of its journalists had been detained while covering protests in Egypt and were being held by “military intelligence services”. 

“Two of them were detained during the protest” in the Egyptian capital Cairo, a spokeswoman for the channel, Nathalie Lenfant, told media.

A third journalist, who was slightly injured during the protest, was separately detained at a barricade, she said.

Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) earlier condemned as “shocking” attacks in Cairo against foreign media by partisans of Egypt’s embattled President Hosni Mubarak, saying journalists from the BBC, Al-Jazeera, CNN, Al-Arabiya, ABC News and other outlets had been attacked.

While I applaud the journalists who risk their lives to send coverage to their viewers and readers, it leaves me wondering whether I could face such a task. It’s not the journalism I’m worried about, it’s more of the safety element. It makes me question how, as a journalist covering riots, protests, and the like in foreign countries, you can protect yourself and ensure you’ll arrive home safely. I’m sure I’m not the first to ponder this, but I know I’m certainly not the last of the next generation of journalists to enter this field. There’s no doubt news like this deserves a lot of coverage–and certainly so in this age of 24-7 news and instant access. But, am I up to the challenge of boarding a plaine to describe the sights, sounds, and smells of violence to the viewers? At this point, I don’t know, but give me 5 years and I may have made up my mind.