Tunisia's journalists discover press freedom (News Feature)

By Ulrike Koltermann Jan 20, 2011, 15:40 GMT

Tunis - Jeannette Ben Abdallah, a Tunisian journalist, is proud of her newspaper.

Essahafa, a national daily that until a few days ago was toeing the regime's official line, on Wednesday ran a photograph of demonstrators on its front page.

'It's unbelievable that we have this freedom now,' Ben Abdallah, the paper's business editor said.

'Until now our front page was held hostage (by the regime). Every day we had to print a photo of the president and his wife.'

'Now, we've decided to take responsibility for our own editorial line,' she says. 'Finally we are proper journalists,' she says, beaming.

No sooner had dictatorial leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia after a month-long uprising on Friday than the editorial team held a meeting to map out a new strategy.

The journalists, only a handful of whom had ever been die-hard Ben Ali supporters, seized on the opportunity to ring fence the paper's independence from the government of the day and set up an editorial committee - one that would be independent of the paper's top brass.

'We censored ourselves, in fact, by writing to the government line,' admits Ben Abdallah, an economist in her mid-40s with short, red hair.

The sense of urgency in the newsroom as the deadline for the following day's edition looms is also new.

Journalists sit with their phones cupped to their ear while others clatter away furiously on their keyboards.

'It's new to us that we can question everything now,' says Ben Abdallah. 'But that's all part of the work of a journalist. Now we can, and must, verify everything.'

Ben Ali quit power on January 14, but press freedom in Tunisia began a day before, when he announced an end to all censorship in a last-ditch bid to cling onto power.

Ziad el-Hani is a journalist with French-language daily La Presse, another previously pro-government paper.

Unable to conceal his excitement, he shows off an innovation on the front page of Wednesday's edition: A political cartoon.

The sketch shows a car crammed with passengers who are all arguing over which direction to take - a metaphor for the wrangling within Tunisia's new government of national unity.

'That (having a cartoon on the front page) would never have happened before,' he says. 'We're a real product of the revolution!'

Reporters without Borders ranked Tunisia 164 out of 178 countries in its 2010 Press Freedom Index, a sharp deterioration on its 2009 ranking (154th).

In a report in 2007, 20 years into Ben Ali's rule, the international media rights watchdog said at least 48 publications had been subjected to various forms of censorship - including the seizure of newspapers, suspensions of permits and closures - under his watch.

Many journalists and bloggers, one of whom - Slim Amamou - is now a minister in the transitional administration, were also detained for articles or posts critical of the regime.

Walid Nalouti, also of La Presse, acknowledges that cyberdissidents, and not the traditional press, began Tunisia's revolution. 'It was clearly a victory of the youth,' he says.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter gave Tunisia's youth access to information that was kept out of the press, including footage of police shooting on unarmed demonstrators.

From now on, says Nalouti, Tunisia's written press have a new role to play.

'Now we're at the service of the people.'

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