From Intellectual to Professional: The Move from ‘Contributor’ to ‘Journalist’ at Ruz al-Yusuf in the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

This chapter examines the prosopography of those who ‘made’ Ruz al-Yusuf, an Egyptian weekly magazine founded by the actress Fatima al-Yusuf in 1925. It addresses the presentation of an intellectual milieu through an examination of the authors who contributed to the title from 1925 to 1937, among them ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad, and Muhammad al-Tabi‘i, a gifted editor and journalist. A detailed study of their biographies and lived histories reveals generational similarities rooted in a particular political context and demonstrates how journalism was in the process of being defined by the aspirations, personal histories and aims of its practitioners. The second theme concerns the professionalisation of journalism and explores whether professional journalism necessarily means the development of a ‘news press’ following the Anglo-Saxon model or the French ‘opinion press’ model.