2023-05-31 16:34:26
The return of the material to the press group AfricVision, the lifting of restrictions on access to certain websites or the lifting of the suspension of the Director General of the RTG are all measures which are perceived as a victory for the media against the desires of the government to muzzle the press. Some corporations applaud and believe that the Guinean press has given a good example and a real lesson to other corporations.
For their part, journalists do not want to rest on their laurels. They know that the path is still strewn with pitfalls. Because the junta has people within it who swear by the closure of certain media. In particular private radio stations whose echoes reach all social strata.
Should the press be proud of having forced the public authorities to let go? Certainly not. We must rather continue the fight which is far from being won. From now on, the followers of the single thought intend to play on the economic argument to close certain media. Those who have not paid the royalty to the State are in the line of fire. We will soon ask them for the check or the key.
For the hardliners of the regime, the debtor has no right to criticize his creditor. The famous communicators of the junta make it known on social networks. They claim the royalty as one would claim the debt due to a father. What is looming on the horizon is that bad payers will have the choice between paying or becoming a CNRD griot.
However, this royalty story is a pretext. This fee is insignificant. Especially compared to Guinea’s domestic debt. How many Guinean companies have gone out of business because of the Guinean State’s refusal to pay their services? Should a state that owes nearly 3,000 billion in domestic debt brandish the threat of closing a company that owes it tens of millions?
More than ever, the media must unite to survive. Faced with a military junta that wants to call into question the achievements, there must not be public service media on one side and private media on the other. For once, the former followed in the footsteps of the latter to observe the day without press. But it was less to support the private press than to demand the reinstatement of the Director General of Radiodiffusion Télévision Guinéenne (RTG) in his functions.
If the price to pay for resisting liberticidal measures is the renunciation of the annual subsidy, the media must renounce this right. The press cannot be free if it continues to reach out to the state. Just as if it accompanies this State in illegality. Like the establishment of a synergy of private radio stations on the occasion of the referendum on the new constitution in 2020.
The demand of the press must not be corporatist. It must defend principles and values. It is in this that she can be respected.
Habib Yembering Diallo
#corporatist #demand