FORM OVER FUNCTION: SURVIVING AS A NEWSPAPER IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ALGIERS 000504

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/03/2023
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KDEM KPAO AG
SUBJECT: FORM OVER FUNCTION: SURVIVING AS A NEWSPAPER IN
ALGERIA TODAY

REF: ALGIERS 388

Classified By: Ambassador Robert S. Ford; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Looking back on President Abdelaziz
Bouteflika's second term, many of our press contacts have
told us of their concerns that press freedoms and competence
are shrinking. At the time of Bouteflika's re-election in
2004, French-language daily Liberte was considered an
aggressive representative of Algeria's Fourth Estate by all
accounts, whose investigative headlines attacked the regime
and whose pages contained rich cultural reporting. Today,
Liberte is a shadow of its former self. The number of
advertising pages has more than doubled, the quality and
accuracy of its reporting has declined, and it has come to
resemble other Algerian tabloids that avoid much criticism of
the government. The story of Liberte's decline paints a
bleak picture of the competing business and political
pressures upon the print media in today's Algeria - pressures
which, taken together, make an environment that has grown
less hospitable to the development of an independent and
responsible press. END SUMMARY.

LIBERTE'S GOOD OLD DAYS
--------------


2. (C) Following Bouteflika's re-election on April 2004, the
press landscape began to change in Algeria. The Algerian
Communist party affiliated, French-language newspaper Le
Matin disappeared and its owner, Mohammed Benchicou, ended up
in jail. Other newspapers which had supported defeated
Bouteflika rival Ali Benflis began to change their editorials
and front page headlines to soften criticisms of the
Bouteflika government. The Liberte of 2003 and pre-election
2004 was considered a firestarter, featuring antagonistic
covers such as one in which a photo of several cabinet
ministers sat below the headline "All Thieves." Abrous
Outoudert, editor-in-chief of Liberte from 1995 to 2003, told
us that "after decades of muzzling, the Algerian population
was starving for this kind of newspaper," which he said
became one of the symbols of the independent press in
Algeria.


3. (C) Outoudert's successor from 2003-04, Farid Allilat,
regularly published the kind of directly critical front pages
that would be unheard of today, said Outoudert, citing two
examples of "Mr. Ouyahia (Prime Minister at the time) You Are
a Liar," and "Said Bouteflika: A Sub-President" about the
influence of Bouteflika's brother. Liberte's central page,
"the radar," was a reliable source of biting political
rumors, and even famed cartoonist Ali Dilem's cartoons,
according to Outoudert, were even more inflammatory than they
are today. Dilem often portrayed pot-bellied former Chief of
Staff Mohammed Lamari smoking his cigar next to a dog dish
labeled "the people," for example, and did not hesitate to
draw allusions to Bouteflika's alleged love affair with
singer Amel Wahbi.

LIBERTE LOSES ITS TEETH
--------------


4. (C) Throughout the 1990s, Liberte owner Issad Rebrab -
arguably the wealthiest businessman in Algeria - pushed a
policy of rapprochement with the Berber-based opposition
Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) party. As a result,
Liberte had an editorial line that was close to the RCD's
vision of a secular Algeria that was relatively
western-oriented. According to RCD Member of Parliament
Tarek Mira, Liberte struggled to balance its Berber
sympathies with "a pro-Republican support for the security
forces in the fight against (Islamist) terror." As Mira
described it, this put Liberte at odds with itself since the
government itself was restricting democracy. Even though
"the honeymoon with RCD" had ended, the paper still supported
RCD leader Said Sadi's candidacy for the presidency in 2004.
With the chaos of the 1990s in the past, Mira said, the paper
had little choice but to resolve its dual sympathies in favor
of the security forces.

TIES TO ESTABLISHMENT DRIVE BUSINESS DECISIONS
-------------- -


ALGIERS 00000504 002 OF 003



5. (C) Omar Rebrab, CEO of Hyundai Algeria and son of Issad
Rebrab, explained to us recently that his father realized
after Bouteflika's re-election in 2004 that "he could lose
(Algerian food processing conglomerate) Cevital because of
Liberte." Omar said that the entire Rebrab business group
began to encounter difficulties with port authorizations and
customs approvals. At that time, he said, the Rebrab group
was in the midst of expansion and could not afford any type
of loss that would jeopardize the future of the business
group. In 2005, Rebrab decided to reshuffle the management
and direction of Liberte, hiring Mounir Boudjema, known as an
excellent analyst on terrorism and security issues, to take
the editorial lead at the paper as a nod to the security
services. Ahmed Fattani, editor-in-chief of French-language
daily L'Expression, worked at Liberte in the 1990s before
leaving for France during the worst of the instability. He
told us in early April that "he does not recognize Liberte
anymore," adding that during Bouteflika's second term it had
shifted from "total hysteria to complete adhesion" to the
views espoused by the security services. "We all know the
chapel at which Boudjema preaches," said Fattani, "and why
Rebrab chose him." At the same time, Liberte secured steady
access to government-controlled advertising from state
enterprises and GoA contracting offices.

MORE ADS, LESS SUBSTANCE
--------------


6. (C) Rebrab's change in direction did not sit well with
many Liberte journalists. Former Liberte journalist Samar
Smati told us she decided to leave Liberte after her coverage
of the Khalifa banking scandal. "Whenever I commented on
what was going on behind the scenes of the case," she said,
"I was indirectly told to stick to the facts" in the public
domain. Journalist Mustapha Benfodil also left Liberte,
telling us the Liberte he used to work for had "abandoned its
name" and now looked "more like a catalog than a newspaper
with page after page of advertising."

SHRINKING PRESS FREEDOMS
--------------


7. (C) On May 3, 2005, on the occasion of International Press
Freedom Day, Bouteflika delivered a speech highlighting the
responsibilities of the press and stating his will to have a
press "made of professionals and not mercenaries." In the
aftermath of the downfall of Le Matin and Benchicou, many
newspapers fell into line after this speech. Leila Aslaoui,
former Senator and Minister of Youth and Sports, used to
write a Thursday column in French-language daily Le Soir
d'Algerie in which she would denounce "Bouteflika's tribe,"
"the extremism of the Prime Minister," and "the false and
unjust program of national reconciliation." She told us in
early April that she considered it "her duty to write about a
country which is going backwards due to the leadership of one
person and his clan." She told us that in February of 2008,
she was notified that her column space "had been reserved for
other purposes." She has not appeared in Le Soir d'Algerie
since. According to Aslaoui, the government "has cracked
down on dissenting voices" during the Bouteflika second term,
citing Benchicou as a cult hero among Algerian journalists.

COMMENT: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST?
--------------


8. (C) In the 1990s Liberte was not always the most accurate
newspaper, but its editorial line espoused a vision of
Algeria that many shared, and it had a strong readership.
Among journalists now, Liberte has become a symbol of a
softening of the tone of print media reporting, sharing this
iconic status with Benchicou and others, such as former
Arabic-language daily El Khabar editor-in-chief Ali Djerri,
who was ousted several months ago, many believe, by
shareholders pushing for greater alignment with the
establishment. As our contacts have told us, Liberte did
what it had to do to survive, by adapting to business and
political pressures from the establishment. Liberte's
struggles illustrate a series of pressures facing the
Algerian print media more complex now than at any time during
Bouteflika's first term from 1999-2004. Under pressure from
the government, Liberte's editorial line changed due to owner
Issad Rebrab's larger business interests, and several

ALGIERS 00000504 003 OF 003


journalists abandoned the paper, disillusioned that Liberte
had "sold out" in order to survive in the Algerian market.


9. (C) In Liberte's case, most readers today turn first not
to the front page, but to the back cover to enjoy the daily
Dilem cartoon which is often still bitingly critical of the
government. Liberte's situation is not to say that the
Algerian press has been silenced. There is still regular
criticism of government policies in the press, but more and
more only a handful of newspapers print such stories.
El-Watan is one of them, and its editor faces prison due to a
conviction for defamation (ref). Another is the largest
selling daily, the Arabic language el-Khabar El-Watan and
el-Khabar both enjoy strong copy sales, and they do not
depend on government advertising; their copy sales bring in
private companies to advertise with them. These two papers
have their own printing press too, unlike Liberte. Thus, it
would be hard for the GoA to shut el-Watan or el-Khabar down
without generating great international criticism. In
private, the staffs at the two papers express worries about a
narrowing space for the independent press to express its
opinions, especially with the approach of the 2009
presidential election. For that reason, the Embassy used
MEPI funding to sponsor a seminar on May 1 to discuss how
decriminalization of the press might work in Algeria, and the
Ambassador and emboffs attended a conference on press freedom
on May 3. We were the only foreign diplomats at either
event.

FORD