CAIRO
News stories of Anadolu Agency's (AA) Arabic Edition Services made the AA the number one news agency of the Arab world although it has been less than a year since the Arabic Edition Services began publishing news.
The Editor-in-Chief of Egypt's Shuruk newspaper, Amr Khafaci said that the AA had become the most crucial news source of the Arab world.
In his editorial published on Thursday under the title "Al-Jazeera and Anadolu Agency", Khafaci underlined that Egypt's state run Middle East News Agency (MENA) fell behind the AA.
Praising the AA's achievements, Khafaci stressed that "MENA's current position was embarrassing and unacceptable".
MENA last Tuesday could not provide services to subscribers for a while.
"Such a development was a reason for jokes on the Egyptian social media," Khafaci said.
"Individuals on Facebook and Twitter placed messages saying the Egyptian people were learning about their own news from a Turkish news agency," Khafaci noted.
"Individuals on social media also wrote that the disruption in MENA's services did not change anything. They argued that it was not evident in the past if MENA in fact had news or not," Khafaci emphasized.
-"News on Egyptian cabinet shuffle carried AA's signature"-
"News on the latest Egyptian cabinet shuffle and the list of new ministers, highly important developments for Egypt, carried the signature of the AA," Khafaci stated.
"Such a reality is a matter of sadness for us as the MENA should be the source of accurate news involving the Presidency, government, army, police, and other official establishments," Khafaci indicated.
"The only media organization taking a pulse of the Egyptian political agenda and competing with the AA and surpassing the AA is 'Al-Jazeera Egypt' TV channel based on the latter's interviews with high level Egyptian officials and executives of the Freedom and Justice Party," Khafaci noted.
"One of Egypt's news sources is Turkey's official news agency AA and the other one is a Qatari media group," Khafaci indicated.
"While MENA has to be the main source of Egypt's news for various agencies and media establishments and had to correct certain news stories published by certain foreign establishments, many other organizations have left MENA behind. Moreover, our official news agency publishes news stories that do not reflect the reality completely," Khafaci underlined.
"The state has the right to learn about national issues from an agency it financially supports and not from agencies of other countries. The state has to question certain officials on this matter and itself must be questioned. Egyptian authorities have to understand the situation wisely. Egypt should learn its own news not from Turkey or Qatar but from its official TV station and news agency," Khafaci stressed in his editorial.
"MENA's current situation is embarrassing and unacceptable. MENA needs to be worked on and saved from its position which became a topic for jokes. The image of MENA must be improved," Khafaci also said in his editorial.
