CAIRO // Egypt's upper house of parliament named 50 new editors for state-owned newspapers, including several who have Islamist leanings, raising concerns among journalists of Islamising the press.
The state-owned papers, run for years by secular-leaning editors, had a reputation as a mouthpiece for President Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed last year.
Elections following the popular uprising put the Muslim Brotherhood in control of the parliament and the presidency. State-owned media formally belong to the upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, and it was set to put its stamp on the newspapers.
The lower house, also dominated by Islamists, was dissolved after a court ruled that elections for the body were conducted illegally.
The Brotherhood and its newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, have complained about negative press coverage, and the move on Wednesday by the Shura Council to replace the old editors with people more sympathetic to the Islamists was not a surprise.
Since the 1960s, the state-run press has been dominant, employing about 30,000 journalists and staff. The papers have run up deficits of 12 billion Egyptian pounds (Dh7.34bn). However, over the past decade, many of its most respected journalists have moved to privately-owned papers, which increased in number and attracted large audiences.
