Errors in a newspaper can be distressing and sometimes damaging: rarely are they life-threatening. But in the febrile atmosphere of Egypt's streets, a simple word out of place in print or online can put reporters at risk.
At 5.34pm on 25 January, a photo gallery of a demonstration in Cairo went up on the Guardian's website. Within minutes there was a storm of protest because the headline on the gallery erroneously said "Anti-government demonstrations". In fact it was a "pro-government" demonstration. It was a simple editing error in London, the result of a misunderstanding, which happens to most journalists at some time or another. The paper's correspondent in Cairo, Patrick Kingsley, who did not write the headline, spotted the mistake at 6.04pm, and the headline was changed six minutes later. But social media had already kicked in – and the Guardian's automatically generated tweet with the wrong headline went viral.
This echoes another painful experience for the Guardian when it published a story that suggested Hosni Mubarak's fortune could be $70bn a week before the president stood down in February 2011. That story, which was believed to have overestimated his fortune on the basis of one source, also went viral during the demonstrations in Tahrir Square and was damaging for the Guardian.
Three years on, it is a tense time for international journalists in Egypt. The government and its many supporters feel that foreign media are biased. International outlets have largely portrayed Egypt's current predicament as a slide back to authoritarianism. But pro-government Egyptians feel the state's hardline measures against dissent are the only and legitimate means of getting rid of Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, which is portrayed as a terrorist organisation, and of re-establishing stability. As a result, foreign correspondents are seen as acting in the Brotherhood's interests – and are often depicted on local television stations and in newspapers (which are nearly all thoroughly behind the government) as paid Brotherhood agents or spies.
One reader, who described himself as a "British/Egyptian" living in the UK, complained to the readers' editor on Saturday night: "Myself and many Egyptians are not happy about the picture of Tahrir Square that you tweeted today and you said that this picture is Egyptian anti-government protests.
"You have to be accurate about what you are saying and publishing as you have to respect your organisation's name … this picture was for the Egyptian people who [support the] government and want the strong Sisi to be the Egyptian president and I don't think your tweet was a mistake[;] it was on purpose…"
Kingsley, who has been detained or arrested six times by the police or other groups while covering events in Egypt, said: "Government supporters were furious at what they saw as an outright lie, rather than an honest mistake by someone working under pressure thousands of miles away. Within an hour, a leading television talkshow host had asked me to come on air to justify our error. People have been asking me all week about what we were thinking.
"At times the anger against foreign journalists has spilled over into violence. One German crew was hospitalised after being attacked by a nationalist mob last week, and there have been several other comparable instances. Meanwhile, police have often arrested journalists reporting on anti-government rallies. Carrying a camera containing photographs of protests is enough to have you detained. According to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, there have been at least 24 assaults or arrests of journalists since Saturday, 25 January."
As Kingsley reported in the Guardian last week, 20 al-Jazeera journalists, including two Britons, an Australian and a Dutch citizen, have been charged with fabricating news and tarnishing Egypt's reputation abroad. Al-Jazeera is owned by Qatar, which is perceived to be a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
At one point on Saturday night the Guardian was forced to issue a statement denying that the Qataris own the paper: "It is well documented that the Guardian has a unique form of media ownership in the UK. The Guardian is the core business of Guardian Media Group, which is wholly owned by The Scott Trust Ltd, the purpose of which is to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity."
Such truths as we currently hold as self-evident may have to be stated more often and with greater clarity.