The audiovisual public media has suffered from many problems in Tunisia since the fall of the Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime, and it has vacillated between its usual promotional propaganda role and the freedom of expression that has become a reality, and the role that Tunisians await to contribute to the success of the slow and fragile democratic transition in Tunisia.

These challenges led to a multi-faceted crisis, which journalist researcher and strategic expert Maher Abdel Rahman tried to investigate in his book "Public Audio-Visual Crisis in Tunisia" issued by the Tunisian Book House, which is a unique book in the anatomy of the crisis and its comprehensiveness with a clear and accurate scientific approach through documents, examples and comparative studies. .

Maher Abdel Rahman is one of the pillars of the media in Tunisia.

He is a researcher and accredited expert with Arab and international professional organizations in the field of audiovisual, graduated from the Institute of Journalism and News Sciences and Stanford University in American television production, and he is the owner of a news production agency that deals with a number of foreign channels, in addition to his work in Tunisian radio and television, which headed for years of liberation. Her news.

The book "Public Audiovisual Crisis in Tunisia" was recently released by the Tunisian Book House (Al-Jazeera)

The founding of the reform

This book extends over 378 pages of large pieces, and its author has divided it into 3 major parts: the public audiovisual media in the world and the position of the Tunisian media in comparison, the causes of the governance crisis in the Tunisian audiovisual public media, and a strategic project to reform the two national radio and television institutions with a good governance approach.

The book was presented to the book by the strategic expert in the media, Mr. Reda Al-Najjar, who said that "the public media facility is dying, but rather that it has passed away, and with its death the values ​​have disappeared. It is a cry of fear of a professional journalist, and in this documented critical author documenting evidence of erudition, Maher Abdul Rahman presented a real inventory of the channels." Tunisian public radio and television station, and presented a painful and terrifying diagnosis of the extent of the decline reached by the public service in the audiovisual media, and its deterioration in the shafts of bureaucracy, clientelism, nepotism and indifference.

A scientific and informational approach in crisis

Maher Abdel-Rahman says in the introduction to the book and the reasons for its authorship that “the public audiovisual media in Tunisia has entered a dangerous phase of impotence with which it has not been able to keep pace with the new historical stage of the country in its democratic era, and has failed to be the locomotive devoted to freedom of expression and the light that shines the way to educate the public about its rights. And his duties and unify it around common values ​​and goals, and to provide this audience with fair and impartial information based on professionalism and professional ethics, and to play the role of questioner of authority in the name of this public, who has sovereignty over its land and public property.

The researcher attributes that crisis to this media’s lack of all the legal, organizational and functional elements to get out of the nature of its previous work. He believes that the state has been unable to reform those structures affiliated with it and set goals for them in line with the "new era of the country", which prompted the public media today to be in Position of "clinical death".

Hence, the book seeks to describe and diagnose the crisis, and the question remains: Why did the researcher choose not to attach the title to the phrase “reform and suffice” with the word crisis?

Although an important part of the book included reform strategies and practical proposals for that!

It is likely that the writer was concerned with drawing attention to the seriousness of the situation, and that awareness of danger is the first way to reform, so the word reform is absent from the title. The matter can also be interpreted that the deep discussion about the crisis includes in itself a proposal for reform, but we cannot overlook the The tone of despair in the form of mourning confirmed by Professor Redha Al-Najjar in his speech on the cover of the book when he said that the public media "died".

Tunisia and comparative experiences

One of the important topics covered by the book, in addition to technical and bureaucratic issues, is the issue of freedom of expression, which the author believes is the only thing on which the observers of the Tunisian affairs and the Tunisians themselves agree, which has achieved the goals of the revolution, and accordingly the new Tunisian constitution was established in 2014.

The researcher presented foreign experiences, including the British media, American media, French and Italian media, and the reasons for his success, and felt that "the public media can only succeed in its tasks if it is rooted in its society, linked to it, and speaks in its name as its sponsor, and takes its hand" through the culture of citizen participation and civil society Supporting human rights, highlighting violations, spreading awareness of the values ​​of these rights, enshrining the rule of law, combating corruption, establishing transparency, making efforts to access information, contributing to poverty reduction by providing opportunities for the poor to access the media, and giving them the ability to express their views And help them through educational and health programs.

These goals are specified in the pamphlet of conditions and tasks of the public media in European countries, which is what the Tunisian public media lack.

The researcher indicated that the most important mistake the public media made was its simulation of the private media, saying, “The common, even fatal, mistake is that broadcasting and television establishments in the public sector seek to emulate the programs of private channels to compete with them in order to win the audience. The programmatic objectives of public channels differ. Completely about its own counterpart. "

The state is the one that funds the contents in the public sector, which is not economically demanding of profit, but rather its mission is to build the Tunisian human being by consecrating pluralism and the culture of citizenship, making culture, science, sports and youth care available, and all of this is based on the Western public media institutions in question.

The researcher points to a major dilemma related to the bureaucracy in which the public media is floundering, which caused its disruption and paralysis in some cases.

An institution such as the Tunisian Radio and Television Corporation, which was established in 1938-1966, is still operating with the same functions of the French system, but under the French system during the era of President General De Gaulle, President of the Republic 1959-1969, as it was monitored by the authority and its servant. ”Bourguiba used to prepare it for his television and radio, and Bourguiba and his successor was Ben Ali is the one who appoints the general directors of the Radio and Television Corporation and the channel directors. "

Even in the separation of the two institutions, the Tunisian regime imitated the French system, which is a false simulation, according to the researcher, because the French decision was for objective reasons related to the bankruptcy of the public sector, the proliferation of private radio stations, piracy, and the accumulation of debts on the radio.

The revolution did not bring the liberalization of the media easily.

The channel that was recruited for the political propaganda of the Ben Ali regime "cannot transform overnight from a news section whose officials receive instructions from all sides, to a section run by journalists alone and in which coverage and news coverage are subject to consultation," as Hammadi El-Ghidaoui, former editor-in-chief of the National Channel news, answers the researcher. Maher Abdul Rahman.

The two institutions witnessed a number of internal disagreements and major and many changes without setting a clear reform strategy or reform project establishing a rupture with the old work according to known goals.

Rather, the first stages witnessed an attack on journalists, accusing them of being supporters of the counter-revolution, along with the sit-ins that were in front of the television, and the demand to sell and dispose of them, and the television entered into an attraction to the parties and the authorities, and their mistakes increased.

This difficult psychological vibration, as described by the researcher, led to the weakness of the institution and its penetration of "gradual interference in the work of the public audiovisual media and influencing the editorial line."

The book stops at the experience of the Agency for the Promotion of Audiovisual Production, and while it succeeded in producing respected news, dramatic and cinematic material, it failed to promote it abroad, and entered into an administrative crisis as corruption ended the experience after the institution was penetrated by companies that derive their influence from their loyalty to the authority, to seize publicity and became bankrupt. Enterprise.

The research extends to specialized and regional radio stations, from cultural radio to youth to Panorama and French-speaking and national radio, so that the researcher confirms that poor performance is a result of a blurry vision and an absence of innovation, a significant part of which may be attributed to the simple budgets that are assigned to it, and to the inability of these broadcasters to keep pace with the variables that It is witnessed by the media in the world.

 The reform proposal

The researcher offers a set of proposals to save the public media at the administrative and practical level, setting goals and re-pumping new blood for him to get him out of the dying state and revitalize him again to play its strategic role in the democratic transition.

The media, according to his opinion, needs "a complete review of its regulatory texts, and the adoption of good governance to completely reorganize it", in order to adapt to the current digitization and play its basic role.

It was found to "unite citizens around common values ​​and national goals to build the future, and to help establish a coherent national identity", in addition to its role in education, education, fair information and entertainment.

It should also play its role in enshrining the principles of "freedom of opinion, thought, expression, information and publication," as stipulated in that constitution.

The researcher ends his work by confirming that “the media in any country is the image of its society, and it cannot remain backward if the state and society are developed,” hence the need to reform it in order to fit the democratic transition that Tunisia is experiencing after the revolution of January 14, 2011.

However, its present situation and its apparent fragility is also completely in harmony with the fragile situation of emerging democracy, and it is an example of all other public institutions that are in a state of atrophy, and in urgent need to dismantle and reform them according to the new reality.