Save The Press!

In a political dispensation where and when the press is only referred to in terms of its inability to deliver or perform, here is one rare opportunity when one can count a rare blessing offered b the press!

Last Friday, May 3 was world press freedom day and unlike what has been the usual attitude to cry foul over the faults of the national press on each of these occasions, there was some refreshing news from Douala, where activities marking the day were launched.

Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary announced that the resolutions of the December 2012 General Forum on the Press where about to see their realization. What is of very special note is the fact that the so-called aid to the press - so decried by virtually the totality of the press, written or audio-visual - is being dumped to give rise to a new and acceptable formula of assistance to the press in which real concerns such as prohibitive taxation and the difficulties in distribution as well as decent working conditions for workers of the sector are taken into serious consideration.

The mere mention of the fact that the government is distancing itself from the infamous aid system is enough to raise reasonable sighs of relief from within the ranks of real professionals. It is not necessary to visit the working conditions of journalists to justify all the acrimony that exists in the sector and which, for the most part, justifies all the unorthodox practices in the sectors, the best known being the overly inclination of many journalists to accepting bribes or other forms of payments and facilitations that influence the quality, content and orientation of their work.

It is well known that many, if not the majority of Cameroonian journalists, work under very precarious conditions which even defy the most elementary elements of human dignity. But in an impoverished environment, every inhuman treatment of even the best intellectual minds can be justified in the name of providing the basic need that can sustain a person while waiting for brighter days ahead.

As per the Minister of Communication, the speed with which to determine the putting into place of the necessary instruments of the new aid system will largely depend on the capacity of the press to show itself as an important accompaniment not only in ensuring the advent of a responsible press, but also in encouraging the government to reach its objectives of making Cameroon an emerging economy come the year 2035.

The Minister, quite appropriately, indicated that the process of empowering the press with this new energy in the form of fresh funds, will be engineered by a synergy of forces, least of which is not the Ministry of Finance and other ministries such as those of Trade or Small and Medium-sized Industries which have various roles to play in the process of giving the press its new role.

Granted, the Minister of Communication, in an interview with CT (see page5) stated that it will take the combined synergy of a number of ministries to see the recommendations of the 2012 forum on communication take effective root; but the urgency of complying with the exigencies of VISION 2035 give a different dimension altogether. It is a matter of saving the press from all that is plaguing it: be it poor wages for actors of the scene, poor infrastructure, poor quality of production, poor distribution networks, unfriendly taxation policies, administrative influence in content, attempts at censorship among several other reprehensible issues.