An Executive journalist recently presented himself at the Parliament to request an interview, and was confronted by a guard who demanded to see his official press syndicate credentials.
The journalist laughed. “Have you ever seen the press syndicate?” he asked, referring to the elusive quasi-governmental body responsible for granting local journalists press cards.
The soldier rolled his eyes and waved the journalist through. Though he may not have found the joke funny, he understood its punch line.
Very few Lebanese journalists carry official press cards, despite the fact that, according to the country’s 1962 Press Law, all journalists and editors must be organized within the Lebanese Press Syndicate. The syndicate is organized into the Press Association and Editors Association, both of which submit members to the 12-seat Press Council where most of the syndicate’s power is concentrated.
Theoretically, the syndicate grants press credentials, licenses periodicals, offers its members special services to facilitate their work and regulates the conduct of the press through its disciplinary committee, among other functions. However, journalists and editors from across Lebanon’s print media spectrum paint a far different picture of the reality of the situation.
As of 2008, only 1,086 journalists out of some 3,000 working in Lebanon belonged to the syndicate, according to the research company Information International.
“At present, if they were to apply the law, all the journalists who are not members would be prosecuted,” says Tony Mikhael, legal advisor to the Maharat Foundation, a media advocacy group. In a recent interview with Executive, Information Minister Tarek Mitri said: “I realize there is a problem [at the Association of Editors]… There are people who are members who should not be and people who are entitled to be members who are not.”
These problems are widely acknowledged, but there is less agreement as to why they exist.
“There is a decision in the syndicate to not let many people register. This is intentional,” said Mikhael, adding that the board aims to keep the numbers low and manageable so that, “they can control them and make sure that they vote for them. If all the journalists in Lebanon could enter [the Syndicate] their standing would be unsettled.”
Hassan Khalil, the publisher of Al Akhbar newspaper, says his publication is not active in the Syndicate because they view it as politicized and unrepresentative.
“We don’t see the Press Syndicate as an effective body,” he says. “The Syndicate, like any other body in Lebanon, reflects a mirror image of the political scene.”
Rumors abound of journalists being refused entry to the Syndicate on political and sectarian grounds, or being made to wait up to 10 years to finally get their credentials. However, Habib Chlouk, responsible editor at An Nahar and a member of the Press Council, argues that even if these stories are true, the Syndicate cannot be held solely responsible.
“The membership process is run by the membership committee which is made up of three branches: a representative of the Information Ministry, two representatives of the Press Association and two of the Editors Association — no one group can approve memberships without the consent of the other two,” he says. “Therefore, any problem that arises from approving memberships of certain individuals puts all three bodies at fault, and not just one.”
Even those who have managed to join over the years remain highly skeptical of the usefulness of their membership. “It took more than seven years, from the time I applied for membership [at the syndicate], to be issued a press card,” says Hayda Houssemi, chief of the business news desk at Al Mustaqbal newspaper. “It’s been a year now since I was told the card was ready, and I still haven’t gone to pick it up. I just think, what’s the point?”
Houssemi and other journalists say that although the syndicate offered concrete advantages in the past, today the benefits of membership are vague at best. According to Antoine Howayek, president of the Lebanese Press Club (an independent body), promises of discounted airfares, phone services and other allowances for the syndicate’s journalists have consistently failed to materialize. The syndicate has, until very recently, kept its business behind closed doors, disclosing almost nothing of its finances, internal decisions or governing laws. However, with the death of the president of the Association of Editors and founding member of the syndicate, Melhem Karam, on May 22, 2010, those doors have begun to rattle with the rising clamor of journalists, members and non-members alike, who see this moment as their best chance in decades to instigate reform.
Yet even with his passing, Karam’s influence can be felt; the syndicate he established, still under the direction of his inner circle, may well prove as obstinate to change today as it has for the last half-century.
“We don’t see the Press Syndicate as an effective body…[it] reflects a mirror image of the political scene”
A one-man show
The story of the Press Syndicate is inextricable from that of its founder. The driving force behind the syndicate’s establishment, Karam directed his organization as its president from the moment of its creation in 1962 to the moment of his death. Supporters have called his role in the syndicate paternal; critics term it dictatorial. Neither contests his nearly unilateral ability to influence the internal structure and operations of the organization.
“He was what you might call a one-man show,” said Baria Ahmar, a long-time Lebanese reporter currently freelancing for CNN. “I think in the end that’s what killed him: he simply would not delegate.”
According to sources close to the syndicate, Karam established the first Press Council, the syndicate’s ruling body, from a select group of loyalists, housing the group in a building he owned and instating himself as president. Over the next four decades or more, those same
administrators retained their seats with almost no alteration. “Has there been any change to that original list? I think no,” said the Press Club’s Howayek. “Perhaps we have seen some members replaced for health reasons, others have passed away. But otherwise, I believe there has been very little change to the Council’s membership.”
According to its internal law — a document last amended in the early 1980s that looks like it was hammered out on a teletype machine — the syndicate must re-elect the council and president every three years. True to that law, every three years Karam and his already seated council members would submit themselves for reelection. And each time, they would pass uncontested. Why, in more than 40 years, no individual or alternate list was ever submitted as a candidate is a matter for speculation.
Journalists interviewed by Executive assert that Karam’s influence was too strong, his presence too intimidating, for anyone to attempt to unseat him. Others claim that the syndicate prevented any possible contest by closing its doors during the brief period in which opposing candidates could declare their candidacy.
“In the past, the syndicate relied completely on its president’s [charisma], but we want to change that. We want to turn the syndicate into a real institution as opposed to being solely about the syndicate’s head,” said An Nahar’s Chlouk, who is in the running to replace Karam as the head of the Association of Editors. He also has plans to update the syndicate’s antiquated by-laws to include journalists working in online, TV and radio.
“In the past, the syndicate relied completely on its president’s [charisma] but we want to change that”]
By the press, for the press
The journalists and editors who make up the non-Council members of the syndicate have a single function within the body: it is their job to elect, at the end of each three year term, a new council and president of their choosing. They have yet to fully exercise the only power granted to them. But with Karam’s passing, many see this moment in time as their best chance since the syndicate’s inception to establish a truly representational body within the council.
At the moment, however, the ball remains in the council’s court. The internal law states that should the president of the council die or be compelled to forfeit his or her seat for any reason, the council has the power to appoint a new member to the vacant seat for the duration of his or her term. Critics fear that in the interim period before the new elections the council will use its powers to amend the law in such a way as to guarantee that current members retain their places indefinitely.
“I met with the members of the syndicate earlier this month, and I challenged them to have the courage to resign, all of them,” said CNN’s Ahmar. “If they want to launch, as they claim, free and fair election reform in this body, which is very important, I challenge them to resign and call a general election. I want [each Council member] to be someone I elected, someone I can ask to do things, someone I can communicate with.”
Ahmar said that, for now, the Press Council is guaranteed an interim period of nine months before elections can be held. However, there may be other legal means of unseating the council before that term ends. The starkest of these is found in article 19 of the internal law which states: “No person who owns or manages a periodical shall hold a seat on the council, unless they choose to give up ownership or renounce their function prior to assuming the seat.”
A source following the debate, who chose to remain anonymous, said that, at this moment, as many as seven of the current 11 Council members are in violation of this clause, as they are either owners or managers of news outlets in Lebanon. Information Minister Tarek Mitri has voiced similar concerns about the appropriateness of owners and managers currently sitting on the Council.
Chlouk, however, who is both a member of the council and responsible editor at An Nahar, suggests that these concerns are misplaced. “It’s been like this for 40 years… When the General Assembly votes in that person’s favor by 99 percent, then that means that they approve of that person, despite what the by-laws say,” he says. “We may amend the by-laws when a new executive board is formed in a year and a half; maybe the amended by-laws would allow owners of publications and editors to run for positions on the executive board.”
Chlouk added that as they don’t get a salary from the syndicate, it’s essential for board members to have second jobs. Money, suggests Al Akhbar’s Khalil, is at the root of many of the problems of both the Syndicate and the wider media scene in Lebanon.
“The tragedy of the profession of the press is that journalists are meant to be the fourth estate, a pillar of society, but the salaries that they are paid make them exactly like the judges: vulnerable to be being manipulated by political forces,” he laments. “Money plays a pivotal role in the political persuasions of journalists.”
