Tag: journalists

Below is the resignation of my colleague Lina El Wardani:

Dear Sherif Wadoud
This is to inform you – as a leading member of the core editorial team of the English Edition – that the unprofessional and haphazard intervention of management has resulted in an untenable work environment at the English Edition of Al-Masry Al-Youm.
As you are well aware:
1) In February 2009 I was hired by Ms. Fatemah Farag, chief editor of the English Edition, as a news editor and the first employee of the English Edition;
2) In June 2009 I was promoted to be a managing editor which has meant working 6 and 7 day weeks, all hours of the day, using my personal phone, internet and computer at my own expense since Al-Masry never provided these basic facilities;
3) Together with the chief editor gathered the highest calibers in the field of bilingual reporters in the Middle East;
4) Worked with the core editorial team to make this the fastest growing and most successful local English-language news site in the Middle East as testified to by our linking profile and growing traffic;
In spite of my keen awareness of our success and my active role in building this project, keeping the pride and joy of the job is becoming a daily challenge.
All the ethical and professional codes are being breached. The following are just a few examples:
1- During all meetings with management the importance of integration with the Arabic Edition is asserted. However, I was kicked out of a liaison meeting by the chief editor of the Arabic newspaper who went on to insulted me in public To date, I have not been offered an apology neither by the chief editor, nor by the management;
2- Management interferes in daily editorial matters. Having worked at the BBC, MBC , DPA, Al Jazeera, UN press office, and other international and local news rooms, this is a practice I have never encountered. I find it unacceptable.
3- The Project Manager is always sending me orders, bypassing my editor, which puts me in an awkward, and simply wrong, situation;
4- In the weekly meetings with management, the benchmarks change so often that it becomes impossible to discern what the actual priorities are and what the relevance of project owner directives are; should they be relevant at all. The message of months of interaction is that management does not know what it wants or what this project is about.
5- Since the launch of the project I have worked weekends, shifting with my co managing editor Hossam el-Hamalawy, and I have yet to be compensated for these days.
6- I have never worked in an organization where my efforts were so unrecognized (I have not received a bonus or raise in my 15 months here), where I faced such breaches in professional conduct, where the institution instead of supporting my rights goes out of its way to deny me of these rights.
In sum, I am rather disheartened for having put so much effort and passion in a project which management appropriates it as a personal belonging, constantly disregarding and mistrusting the intellectual capabilities of its editorial team.
I hereby hand over my duties to the management and the senior editorial staff, wishing them all the best.
Regards,
Lina El Wardani
31 May 2010