TV Crews Struggle in Egyptian Chaos

Television crews in Cairo fought to stay on the air as protests enveloped major cities in Egypt. Egyptian authorities adopted various tactics to halt live broadcasts from the capital city, but for the most part networks like CNN and NBC were able to send signals out. The sometimes shaky and grainy television pictures showed that the curfew imposed by the Egyptian government had little effect on its citizens. For a time, Al Jazeera and other networks broadcast startling images of a group of protesters who tried to push a police vehicle off a bridge into the Nile River. The protesters later set the vehicle on fire. Journalists on the scene have been impeded by blockages of the Internet and of wireless phones in Egypt. “We went to our backup systems,” said Tony Maddox, the executive vice president and managing director of CNN International.