Newspaper sellers were once a dime a dozen on Cairo's bustling streets, but now the vendors hawking hot-off-the-press editions have fallen almost silent
As elsewhere in the world, Egypt's print media has been in sharp decline as news has moved mostly online and readers tend to stay up-to-date via their smartphones.
In Egypt, a country of 103 million people, the trend has been especially stark since the government has also raised their prices.
"No one buys newspapers anymore, especially since they got more expensive," said a vendor in her 50s known as Umm Mohammed, wearing a woollen shawl against the winter chill, AFP reported.
The stacks of newspapers and magazines before Umm Mohammed have hardly shrunk all morning, she said, sitting at her kiosk in Cairo's western Dokki district.
Between 6 am and 3 pm, she said she had earned just 15 Egyptian pounds, or about $1.
The government three years ago raised prices of dailies from two to three pounds, and of weeklies from three to four pounds, citing costlier raw materials and dwindling subscriptions.
Sales collapsed further last July when the government scrapped evening newspaper print editions.
"People used to come by to get the evening paper and then pick up a couple of other issues on the way," said Umm Mohammed. "Now we don't even have that."
"It's mobile phones everywhere. People passing my kiosk often ask: 'Oh, people are still selling these, even with everything online?'
"That really upsets me. This is our livelihood. What are we supposed to do?"
Microbus driver Tareq Mahmud, 44, stopping near the kiosk, said he hadn't bought a newspaper in 11 years.
Ahmad al-Taheri, editor-in-chief of the Rose al-Youssef weekly, a staple of Egyptian journalism for almost a century, said media need to innovate, including in their distribution.
"We need to find new outlets," he told AFP, suggesting new pandemic-era sales points: "Why not pharmacies?"
This is hardly a solution for Umm Mohamed, who after 18 years in the business is planning for her retirement.
In the absence of a trade union or other support system, she, like other vendors, recently signed up to a modest pension scheme with state-run publisher the Ahram Foundation.
But even this pension is not guaranteed.
Abdul Sadiq el-Shorbagy, head of the National Press Authority, told parliament in January that the state press is indebted, owing over $573 million in taxes and insurance payments.
Press outlets are bleeding cash as going online has yet to turn a profit for them, with most content offered for free and advertising revenue proving insufficient.
