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Outlet profile

Mada Masr

Egyptian independent, left-leaning

Owned byMada Masr Media Company, owned collectively by its founding journalists and staff; co-founded and led by editor-in-chief Lina Atallah
FundingMixed: grants from Western foundations and press-freedom organizations (historically around 80% of budget), supplemented by reader membership/subscriptions (launched 2019), advertising, and translation and research services
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

Mada Masr was founded on June 30, 2013, by Lina Atallah and a team of journalists who had worked for Egypt Independent, the English-language weekly of Al-Masry Al-Youm, after that publication closed in April 2013. The launch came on the eve of the military-backed removal of President Mohamed Morsi, placing the outlet at the center of Egypt's turbulent post-Arab Spring media environment. From the start, the founders structured it as a staff-owned company to insulate it from both state control and wealthy private backers. The outlet publishes in both Arabic and English, covering politics, culture, and social affairs, and quickly developed a reputation for investigative reporting critical of the Sisi government. Egyptian authorities blocked its website in 2017 along with hundreds of other independent sites, and the ban has remained largely in place since. In November 2019, plainclothes security forces raided its Cairo headquarters, detained journalists for several hours, and confiscated equipment. Prosecutions and summons of its staff—including Atallah's arrest in 2020 and a new 'false news' investigation in late 2023 over Gaza coverage—have continued intermittently. Atallah received the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Prize in 2020, and the outlet won the International Press Institute's Free Media Pioneer award in 2019. Despite operating without a government-issued license (applications have been ignored since 2018), Mada Masr continues to publish and is consistently cited by press-freedom groups as one of the few remaining independent voices in Egypt.

Sources

  1. Mada Masr | Media Ownership Monitor (RSF)
  2. Mada Masr — A Progressive Voice in Egypt and Beyond (Cogitatio Press)
  3. Egypt raids critical news outlet, detains staff (CPJ, 2019)
  4. Egypt: Authorities must stop targeting Mada Masr (EIPR, 2023)
  5. Egypt: Mada Masr editor faces 'false news' charges over Gaza story (IPI)
  6. Mada Masr launches its membership program (Mada Masr, 2019)
  7. Mada Masr, Egypt's poster child for digital news, begins reader-funded model (Nieman Lab, 2017)
  8. Mada Masr history (Reporterzy.info)
  9. RSF condemns persecution of Mada Masr and its journalists
  10. Mada Masr Wikipedia

Profile compiled 2026-08-27; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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