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NBC's decision to make Engel so prominent derived from his position at the network--chief foreign correspondent--and from his personal history: he lived for four years in Cairo when he was learning Arabic. Thus a personal anecdote: "I lived in a very poor neighborhood and the police were not popular then. They are not popular now. The people come into contact with the police all the time. Often they are unpleasant experiences, demanding petty bribes, shakedowns." Engel took his cameras to the main offices of the Moslem Brotherhood to interview Essam el-Erian, a senior leader. He escorted his anchor Brian Williams through the checkpoints around Tahrir Square, reading political slogans and vouching for the quality of the ancient antiquities on display in "one of the best museums in the world."
ABC, too, showed off its Arabic-speaking staffer. London-based Lama Hasan is another of the network's one-woman-band digital journalists (along with Alex Marquardt and Joohee Cho and Dana Hughes and Nick Schifrin and Karen Russo). Hasan offered simultaneous translation of the protestors' chants: "I have been coming to Cairo for the past 15 years and I never thought I would see a popular uprising here."
CBS flew Atlanta-based Mark Strassmann into Egypt along with anchor Couric. He recapped a hairy weekend for Cairenes, when Mubarak left the city streets unpoliced even as thousands of inmates broke out of prison: "Gangs ran wild. It is widely believed some looters were police…We found that worried residents armed with bats and machetes had organized a militia with in-your-face checkpoints." CNBC sent anchor Erin Burnett to the scene to monitor repercussions for financial markets and global commerce. Filing for NBC, she found a city where "the law is on hold…storefronts are padlocked; gas stations are closed; bank machines down." When ABC's David Muir flew into Cairo from New York he found Sherief Gaber, an ex-patriate student, flying home from Texas on a nearly-empty jetliner. Gaber wanted to check on his grandmother's safety and Muir gave him a ride home in exchange for his story.
Mostly the mood in Cairo was covered from the point of view of the protestors. ABC's Amanpour caught a "poignant moment" when a family of four, boy six, girl eight, joined the anti-Mubarak throng. NBC's Lester Holt introduced us to the political awakening of a twentysomething interior designer. CBS' Strassmann found the English-speaking Nageeb sisters: "It is now or never!" they repeated. ABC's Hasan saw "a spirit of pride everywhere we looked."
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