Over five years have gone by since the January 25th uprising in Egypt and the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. At that time, the news coming in from Tahrir Square went viral on Arab and Western media platforms. The use of social networks brought to light new voices and forms of communication which challenged tradition and hierarchies, affecting media programming, from political talk shows to comedies on both private channels and public networks. After Mohamed Morsi’s short-lived presidency and general elections that brought Abdel Fattah al Sisi to power, one of the most important features of the situation in Egypt today is the atmosphere in which Egyptian media are working and the news coverage by local and foreign journalists.

Hani Shukrallah, an Egyptian political analyst and former chief editor of Ahram Online, will be giving this conference, which will include the participation of Nuria Tesón, an independent journalist who lived in Egypt from 2009 to 2015. Karim Hauser, who is responsible for the Governance Area at Casa Árabe, will be moderating the event. 

Hani Shukrallah is a prominent Egyptian journalist and political analyst. He is the chief writer for Bilahmar Daily and an editorial consultant for the Welad al Balad news reporting services (a network of ten local reporting services throughout Egypt). He has been an advisor to the managing director of the Al-Ahram news organization online, the chief editor of Ahram Online, the editor in chief for the daily Al-Ahram, executive director of the Heikal Foundation for Arab Journalism, assistant chief editor for the newspaper Al-Shorouk and editor in chief for Al-Ahram Weekly. He is the author of the book Egypt, the Arabs and the World: Reflections at the Turn of the 21st Century, published by the American University of Cairo, and he has written extensively about Egypt’s government and politics, the Egyptian revolution, the Arab Spring, political Islam and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as the war in Iraq and “war on terrorism” led by the United States.

Nuria Tesón is a Spanish journalist and writer who currently resides in Istanbul, where she is a correspondent for Cadena Ser and La Sexta. Ms. Tesón has worked for many Spanish media in Madrid, and from 2009 to 2015 she worked as an independent journalist in Egypt, where she covered events in the revolution for El País, Cadena Ser, Cuatro and RCN Noticias. She contributes to international media such as Al Jazeera, CNN and Time. In conjunction with photographer Miguel Ángel Sánchez, she has had a book of portraits about Egypt titled El Alma del Mundo (The World’s Soul) published by Planeta, Lunwerg (2012), as well as other works, as part of the Mástesón ensemble.