“During the first 10 days or so, the Egyptian media was shameful,” said Rasha Abdulla, chairwoman of the journalism and mass communication program at the American University in Cairo. “It was like they were living on another planet.”

But in recent days, state media organizations have started to shift their coverage.

At al-Ahram, after journalists signed a petition telling management that they were frustrated with the paper’s reporting, chief editor Omar Saraya changed his tune. Saraya, who is close to the government and is seen as a staunch regime loyalist, wrote a front-page column praising the “nobility” of the “revolution” and urging the government to carry out constitutional and legislative reforms.

At state-run Nile TV, after two of her colleagues quit, Reem Nour met with her boss and told him that she could not tolerate being censored. She said last week that she would not cover pro-Mubarak demonstrators unless she was permitted to cover anti-government demonstrators as well.