On Misr newspaper which is an Egyptian online newspaper.

Legal and Ethical Issue of Online Journalism

Journalists, at times, are able to undermine the credibility of the profession by not following ethical practices. But journalists affiliated with news organizations are watched by an entire staff of ethical police: editors. A news organization needs journalists to follow ethical guidelines to maintain its credibility, which is directly related to its financial success.



    This circumstance is arguably different from some other professions, in which corporate organizations with a financial motive sometimes undermine ethical conduct to save money.Citizen journalism advocates argue that the marketplace acts as an enforcer of ethical conduct.

However, the professional journalist is also accountable to the news organization; the citizen journalist is accountable only to a vast marketplace that may or may not provide an ongoing motive for ethical conduct.

     Citizen journalism argue that bloggers must be more transparent than traditional media. Traditional news organizations value balanced reporting, but that isn’t necessarily an ethical mandate in the realm of citizen journalists. Even advocacy websites with a clear conservative or liberal point of view can be seen as reliable if the information they provide is substantiated.

     However, some media ethics experts say citizen journalists cannot act ethically if they don’t know or understand the traditional ethical codes of conduct. Andy Schotz, a reporter for The Herald-Mail, a daily newspaper in Hagerstown, Maryland and Chairman of The Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee, said it is difficult for consumers of citizen journalism to discern what content has been thoroughly and ethically gathered and what content is inaccurate or biased. click here

Censorship in Egypt

     While the President determines the main policy of the State, the council of ministers supervises its implementation, and ministerial responsibility to 4 the legislature is constitutionally established. The four main political parties are the ruling National Democratic Party,  the Socialist Workers Party, the Liberal Socialist Party and the Unionist Progressive Party Under the international pressure and that of the Egyptian nongovernmental organizations and fierce competition from the Arab and Egyptian Private Media, in addition to the pressure of businessmen and opposition leaders to expand democracy and freedom ofthe press. 

Hosny Mubarak

    President Hosni Mubarak – unlike his two predecessors – has moved towards more press freedom and lifted many of the restrictions and censorship. Before the 2011's revolution, the Egyptian press under Mubarak operates far more freely than the media in the majority of Arab and African countries. The government has been patient of both criticism in the media and political protests and demonstrations but has sometimes wavered in its commitment, jailing protesters and dissidents and displaying overwhelming police presence at demonstrations. However, The Egyptian government owns controlling shares in the three main daily newspapers in Egypt, Al Ahram, Al Akhbar and Al Gomhuriya. click here

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Ibrahim Essa

    Ibrahim Essa, the Egyptian famous journalist who became a victim of the censorship in Egypt in 2009, however, he stated that the last president of Egypt, Mubarak was sick which was a crime when a journalist states anything touched the president. As a result, Essa faced three years in a prison.




    After the 2011's revolution, AlJazeera journalists staff have arrested  by the Egyptian government as they were working illegal, however, they worked on covering the clashes in 2013 between the police and the Muslim brotherhood. more following

Aljazeera Supporting logo

                                                                 The Democratic Regime

The elections are an own personal choice by the people in every nation, however, the parliamentary elections were found by the Greeks, Romans. Practicing the freedom through voting by the people became an important scale for every country in order to have a democratic regime. Hence, the people of every nation need to express their opinions, currently,

there are a few countries which apply democracy, U.S became the most powerful country which has a strong democratic regime. In 1990 , The American regime tend to made a new registration system to be easier for the people to vote without facing a problems. Hence, voters had to register at state offices to vote. click here 

                                                   The Americans During the elections.

There are several countries had to follow the American democratic system, however, the countries in middle east are the most countries have no democratic system. hence, Egypt became one of the countries in the Arab area with Lebanon. 

During the Sadat's regime in the seventies, the parliamentary elections started in Egypt in 1977 which supported by the president in order to make a peace with the opposed parties regardless the fake elections which were started by the Kingdom system in the twenties. more following

                                                      President Anwar El Sadat.
The ending of Sadat's regime was an important change with the Egyptians, hence, they stopped practicing the democratic elections for safe instruction by the Mubarak's regime. Hence, they started to practice freedom. In the last thirty years, Egyptians practiced the elections.


In 2012, the Egyptian parliamentary elections were the most active elections, however, the Egyptians have shared with a high percentage rate, they shared with these rated for the first time in the history of Egypt.

                                               an Egyptian woman during the 2012 elections


In 2015, the Egyptians have to vote in a new parliamentary elections, hence, the participation by the Egyptians was low rate in comparison with the 2012 parliamentary elections. Some of the Egyptians see that the participation is useless because of the political condition in Egypt. 

                                                Egyptian parliamentary elections

The rate of the participation is an important scale for evaluating the political system of each country, hence, the Egyptian regime should be active with the youths, moreover, finding an answer for this low rate participation is an important potential role for the government. 

Refugees will be refugees

The president of UN, Can you please hear the crying voice of the children who are suffering because of the wrong political decisions ?. The refugees of Syria, Libya and Yemen are a souls who suffer from the negligence by the international community.

Currently, the main question is how to solve the refugees case but this question did not find an answer by Pan Ki Moon who is the elected president of UN, he thinks how to solve the Korean conflict , meanwhile, there are thousands of people killed in Syria, Libya and Yemen by the weapons which supported by Russia, US. UN is an international organization which established by the people to solve their problems became useless for the refugees who did not find the help from the international community who is the responsible for the refugees has decided to look only at the political conflicts in the Korean sea,

Pan Ki Moon found the new role on UN which is solving the conflicts by inventing the two opposed sides to met, drink and eat in the countries which they prefer, however, the UN spend more than year to solve the Libyan case. Will the children in the crises area respect, trust in the UN ?. this dialectical question will need a logical response from the international community.

Attribution is another traits of online journalism which means that every news should be with source, moreover, the journalist should approve that from where came the information, for example, click here .




Newness which means that the news should be new for the audiences. Newness has to be publish for one time, moreover, it should not be published before. Newness means that the journalistic organization should search for only the news which the a click here.



Accuracy is an important trait for the online journalist should get the news with a specific details, for instance where the news came from, how the news happened, these specific details help the audiences to follow the news deeply.




One of the online journalism traits is fairness which is one of an important requirements for the online journalism, however, fairness means the covering of the two sides. Moreover, fairness leads to apply an professional online journalism, for instance, fairness should be applied by the online journalistic in order to be complete the professional online journalism. For instance, in 2006, Al Jazeera which supported the " Lebanese side "  has published that there were many of Israeli victims which killed by the Lebanese forces, on the other hand, " Haartez " which is a famous Israeli journalism organization took the side with only Israeli, however, Haartez did not publish the victims of Lebanon who killed by the Israeli organization.