Interview: “Most Wayward Media Are Sponsored”

Charly Ndi Chia, Editor-in-Chief, The Post Newspaper, National President, Cameroon Union of Journalists, talks on how the media in Cameroon fared in 2016.

 

 

There was a lot of fuss about the Press Card last year but the card was not such an issue for all of 2016. Was it really necessary insisting that journalists obtain a press card?

Most of our laws are conveniently reduced to cobwebs and then circumvented by cheats and frauds. I say so because cobwebs catch only the small flies while the bees and hornets sail through. Similarly, in the case of press cards, fraudulent media practitioners have been taking advantage of a porous system to cut corners, to operate without legal cover. I should add that some very prominent media houses in this country have been operating for some 20 years and more without having ever paid a single State tax.

Check it out; at least one of them is overly critical of Government business. It gets paid for printing advertising from the State, receives media aid but shamelessly dodges taxes. So, it goes beyond mere flashing of press cards. Thieving publishers must be checked and jailed for thieving. Laws must not selectively punish a few while a media racket is perpetrated ad nauseam.

Many thought the card was going to help in determining who a journalist is. But from the sanctions that the National Communication Council (NCC) has taken against certain journalists and media houses, do you not think it is going to take more than a Press Card to put order? 

I think if the National Communication Council was given the charge of issuing the cards, the incidence of bad practice would be minimised, hence, the sanctions as well. But as it stands, if the press card is the sole means of determining who a credible journalist is, then the Council's work is made even more difficult, since it doesn't license them. It suffices then, for everyone else to mess up the public place of ideas in the name of practicing journalism...and then, the NCC is called upon to clean up the mess.

Yes, it would take much more than the press card to put order in the media. It would take a combination of thorough training, mental adjustment and a fair-minded placement of advertisement in credible as opposed to certain flim-flam "man-know-man" media by both the State and private enterprises to make for sanity in this country's media sector. This is just the tip of the iceberg

Is the banning of media houses and the suspension of journalists going ...

Reactions

Commentaires

    List is empty.

Laissez un Commentaire

De la meme catégorie