THE NORTH WEST MEDIA: AN EXCITING PHONOMENON
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| Bamenda |
The significance of the press lies
in its function as the mirror of society. There are only two things to do when
standing face to face with the mirror-adjust or break the mirror.
The press in the North West is more than just vibrant; it is
electrifying in its reporting and truly reflects the very active (volatile)
nature of the North Westerner Bamenda town alone has six FM Radio Stations.
They are Afrique Nouvelle, Abakwa FM, Radio Hot cocoa, Foundation Radio,
Christian Gospel Radio and CBC radio. There are six Community Radio Stations;
Ngoketunjia FM, Oku Community Radio, Savannah Radio-Nkambe, Bui Community
Radio, Donga-Mantung Community Radio and Batibo Community Road. There are also
three TV Stations operating from Bamenda. Cameroon National Television (CNTV),
Republican Television Network (RTN) and Horizon TV Stations operating from
Bamenda. Cameroon
National Television (CNTV), Republican Television Network (RTN) and Horizon TV.
Private newspapers operating from Bamenda include Chronicle, The Watchdog
Tribune, The Herald Tribune, Frontier Telegraph, The Vanguard, World Echoes,
The Reporter, The Eye, Cameroon Post International, Life Time, The Pilot and of
recent, Day Break, Website and Independent Observer. Other publications in newsletter
form are, however, enriched by regular newspapers with headquarters elsewhere.
There are as well the dailies. Cameroon Tribune, and Le Jour, with headquarters
in Yaounde; the
bi-weeklies: The Post and Eden, with headquarters in Buea and Limbe respectively.
The Guardian Post is another widely-read newspaper; it is a weekly with head
office in Yaounde.
Others are The Star, The Spokesman, City Times, Cameroon Now and Cameroon
Express.
Many of these newspapers are like kolanuts.
Nobody knows when a kola nut would fall from the tree. Just as in every popular
profession, there are guards and charlatans. You see the latter at almost all
public occasions brandishing recorders or conducting interviews which are never
published. The North West Governor calls them Ayaba journalists, just like
Hilton journalists in Yaounde.
Even some of those who publish occasionally are also involved in the unenviable
practice of harassing politicians and other newsmakers for money, popularly
nicknamed “gombo.” The most derogatory term ever used on such journalists came
from former Governor of the North
West, Kumpa Issa. He once described them as coupeurs de routes (highway robbers).
This was when some of them tried to obstruct a visiting Minister whom the
Governor was accompanying to Bafut.
Cameroonians, as a rule, do more
listening to the radio and watching television. North Westerners are, however,
among the most informed Cameroonians. There are yet another group of persons
who excel in misinformation because they are not informed themselves. They are
always at the newsstands, not to buy newspapers but to peruse through headlines
and later pose as political schoolmasters in beer and palm wine houses.
Even more dangerous to the
communication landscape are publishers of newspapers without a fixed editorial
policy. For instance, the person they carry to heaven on the wings of panegyric
in one edition is the same one they damn as a rogue in the very next, and they
do not think they owe the reader and explanation for that.
The vibrancy in the North West media is
further demonstrated by the activities of the Cameroon Association of English
Speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ). Apart from the fact that the North West chapter of CAMASEJ holds monthly
meetings and educates members on the tenets of the profession, it organizes
scholarship awards for meritorious GCE candidates.
Janet Garvey, out-gone US ambassador to Cameroon, left with a very positive
impression of North West CAMASEJ, which she communed with more than once. The
same was the impression of Maryline Green, a Canadian media expert. The
vibrancy in the North West
press reflects the vibrancy of democracy and human rights in the region.
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