The Fort Worth Press - Cairo's newspaper vendors go silent as sales collapse

USD -
AED 3.672975
AFN 67.999629
ALL 91.111523
AMD 387.173992
ANG 1.80321
AOA 909.050989
ARS 993.981532
AUD 1.513432
AWG 1.8025
AZN 1.732815
BAM 1.814622
BBD 2.020134
BDT 119.55725
BGN 1.819905
BHD 0.376937
BIF 2953.98033
BMD 1
BND 1.322416
BOB 6.928865
BRL 5.766401
BSD 1.000557
BTN 84.411909
BWP 13.269623
BYN 3.274262
BYR 19600
BZD 2.016663
CAD 1.39033
CDF 2864.999765
CHF 0.87382
CLF 0.035002
CLP 965.829892
CNY 7.176978
CNH 7.119295
COP 4342.43
CRC 511.783262
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 102.303724
CZK 23.461987
DJF 178.168491
DKK 6.937201
DOP 60.252366
DZD 133.649073
EGP 49.295302
ERN 15
ETB 123.874987
EUR 0.930435
FJD 2.263027
FKP 0.765169
GBP 0.77273
GEL 2.724986
GGP 0.765169
GHS 16.408425
GIP 0.765169
GMD 71.503286
GNF 8624.896781
GTQ 7.734274
GYD 209.32455
HKD 7.775425
HNL 25.244016
HRK 6.88903
HTG 131.657079
HUF 378.151017
IDR 15642.6
ILS 3.75092
IMP 0.765169
INR 84.36755
IQD 1310.63277
IRR 42105.000051
ISK 138.179728
JEP 0.765169
JMD 158.73708
JOD 0.709101
JPY 152.535028
KES 129.059769
KGS 86.200846
KHR 4062.905919
KMF 455.949608
KPW 899.999774
KRW 1390.696575
KWD 0.30666
KYD 0.833735
KZT 492.526512
LAK 21958.415676
LBP 89595.29045
LKR 292.713929
LRD 189.597424
LSL 17.508745
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.855171
MAD 9.880406
MDL 17.94396
MGA 4628.787738
MKD 57.309615
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3398.000028
MOP 8.011227
MRU 39.85953
MUR 46.401052
MVR 15.41001
MWK 1734.922991
MXN 20.05304
MYR 4.382502
MZN 63.904987
NAD 17.508907
NGN 1676.009833
NIO 36.815394
NOK 10.982745
NPR 135.060308
NZD 1.670805
OMR 0.385001
PAB 1.000547
PEN 3.752888
PGK 4.016478
PHP 58.332017
PKR 277.829488
PLN 4.025694
PYG 7823.343849
QAR 3.64829
RON 4.629098
RSD 108.858451
RUB 97.448212
RWF 1371.497495
SAR 3.756028
SBD 8.347827
SCR 13.561861
SDG 601.466847
SEK 10.798655
SGD 1.324715
SHP 0.765169
SLE 22.789528
SLL 20969.496802
SOS 571.812952
SRD 34.969835
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.75479
SYP 2512.530268
SZL 17.504175
THB 34.175006
TJS 10.635461
TMT 3.5
TND 3.10642
TOP 2.342096
TRY 34.371903
TTD 6.799035
TWD 32.164981
TZS 2669.999712
UAH 41.303836
UGX 3662.089441
UYU 41.797332
UZS 12793.41634
VEF 3622552.534434
VES 44.138463
VND 25275
VUV 118.722039
WST 2.801184
XAF 608.607348
XAG 0.029645
XAU 0.000367
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.750139
XOF 608.596055
XPF 110.6503
YER 249.849762
ZAR 17.53885
ZMK 9001.209472
ZMW 27.238567
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    0.0100

    61.4

    +0.02%

  • CMSC

    0.0400

    24.72

    +0.16%

  • CMSD

    0.0600

    24.95

    +0.24%

  • SCS

    0.0450

    13.125

    +0.34%

  • GSK

    -0.4350

    36.225

    -1.2%

  • NGG

    -0.4500

    63.85

    -0.7%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0600

    7.15

    -0.84%

  • RIO

    -3.4750

    63.995

    -5.43%

  • RELX

    0.3350

    47.995

    +0.7%

  • VOD

    -0.0400

    9.28

    -0.43%

  • AZN

    -0.1600

    64.53

    -0.25%

  • BTI

    0.0500

    35.45

    +0.14%

  • BP

    -0.9300

    28.88

    -3.22%

  • BCE

    0.3850

    28.455

    +1.35%

  • BCC

    1.0000

    141.85

    +0.7%

  • JRI

    0.1050

    13.475

    +0.78%

Cairo's newspaper vendors go silent as sales collapse
Cairo's newspaper vendors go silent as sales collapse

Cairo's newspaper vendors go silent as sales collapse

Newspaper sellers were once a dime a dozen on Cairo's bustling streets, but now the vendors hawking hot-off-the-press editions have fallen almost silent.

Text size:

As elsewhere in the world, Egypt's print media has been in sharp decline as news has moved mostly online and readers tend to stay up-to-date via their smartphones.

In Egypt, a country of 103 million people, the trend has been especially stark since the government, which publishes most newspapers, has also raised their prices.

"No one buys newspapers anymore, especially since they got more expensive," said a vendor in her 50s known as Umm Mohammed, wearing a woollen shawl against the winter chill.

Critics also bemoan the homogeneity of the press in a country tightly ruled by army-marshall-turned-President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, where censorship and self-censorship are common.

The stacks of newspapers and magazines before Umm Mohammed have hardly shrunk all morning, she said, sitting at her kiosk in Cairo's western Dokki district.

Between 6 am and 3 pm, she said she had earned just 15 Egyptian pounds, or about $1.

The government three years ago raised prices of dailies from two to three pounds, and of weeklies from three to four pounds, citing costlier raw materials and dwindling subscriptions.

This dampened print circulation in the Arab world's largest country, where the average family income is around 6,000 EGP, or $380, per month.

Sales collapsed further last July when the government scrapped evening newspaper print editions.

"People used to come by to get the evening paper and then pick up a couple of other issues on the way," said Umm Mohammed. "Now we don't even have that."

"It's mobile phones everywhere. People passing my kiosk often ask: 'Oh, people are still selling these, even with everything online?'

"That really upsets me. This is our livelihood. What are we supposed to do?"

- 'Need to innovate' -

Microbus driver Tareq Mahmud, 44, stopping near the kiosk, said he hadn't bought a newspaper in 11 years.

"I stopped when I realised that the journalists I was reading in the paper every morning were the same ones I had watched on television" the previous evening, he told AFP.

"And I think there are many like me who stopped around then."

According to official statistics, Mahmud is right: Egypt in 2019 published 67 titles -- public, private or linked to political parties -- down from 142 in 2010.

Circulation roughly halved from more than one million copies to 539,000 over the decade.

Ahmad al-Taheri, editor-in-chief of the Rose al-Youssef weekly, a staple of Egyptian journalism for almost a century, said media need to innovate, including in their distribution.

"We need to find new outlets," he told AFP, suggesting new pandemic-era sales points: "Why not pharmacies?"

- Media in 'sorry state' -

This is hardly a solution for Umm Mohamed, who after 18 years in the business is planning for her retirement.

In the absence of a trade union or other support system, she, like other vendors, recently signed up to a modest pension scheme with state-run publisher the Ahram Foundation.

But even this pension is not guaranteed.

Abdul Sadiq el-Shorbagy, head of the National Press Authority, told parliament in January that the state press is indebted, owing over $573 million in taxes and insurance payments.

Press outlets are bleeding cash as going online has yet to turn a profit for them, with most content offered for free and advertising revenue proving insufficient.

Imad Eddine Hussein, editor-in-chief of the private daily Al-Shorouk, bemoaned the "sorry state" of the press in Egypt.

All front pages tend to look almost identical, reporting on the same presidential speeches or ministerial announcements.

"It's all the same, across every newspaper, so readers are turning away from them," said Hussein. "If it continues like this, it's not just the state press that's going to disappear, private newspapers will too."

P.McDonald--TFWP