The Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalist, CAMASEJ-Northwest made public a regional plan for this year's World Press Freedom Day Event. The plan was released during a press briefing organised by the association to launch activities marking the event. Here is the Press Statement of the President of CAMASEJ-NW Rosaline Obah.
A PRESS STATEMENT ON
THE LAUNCHING OF WEEK-LONG ACTIVITIES TO MARK WORLD PRESS FREDOM DAY 2015 BY CAMASEJ-
NORTH WEST CHAPTER
Distinguished
colleagues
Ladies and gentlemen
 |
| Rosaline Obah, President CAMASEJ_NW |
Accept
greetings from the executive team of the Cameroon Association of English Speaking
Journalists (CAMASEJ)- North West Chapter. On behalf of the Members of this
darling association I wish to welcome you to this first of a kind PRESS
BRIEFING by CAMASEJ-NW. I understand how new this may sound but with the strong
conviction that we as journalists and media related workers, it is imperative
we launch this clarion call for unity and love in this meaningful development
sector in which we find ourselves.
About CAMASEJ-NW
This chapter
is one of the branches of the National association of CAMASEJ created in 1992
to defend and uphold the code and ethics guiding journalists while striving to
inculcate the virtues of being one another’s keeper through the principles of
love, unity, peace, solidarity and development. This association has traveled
through a rough road and I personally see more challenges if we must achieve
what we stand for. While appreciating the National team led by Tricia Oben a
household name in the Cameroon media landscape, permit me to equally register
immense thanks for a job well done to some of our former Chapter presidents and
executive members who after leaving office, have remain faithful and committed
towards the survival of CAMASEJ-NW. Here
I have in mind Choves Loh current National Vice President of CAMASEJ and NW Regional
Service Head of SOPECAM, Chris Mbunwe NW Bureau Chief of The Post Newspaper and
to Comfort Mussa of ACMS, Global Press Institute and Radio France
International. May God richly bless you for contributing your own quota towards
the livelihood of CAMASEJ- NW, worth appreciating because even presently out of
your former offices you all are still offering great inputs for the chapter to
grow to higher heights.
It is worth noting that CAMASEJ-NW
put in place a new executive in October 2014 and I hereby present to you the new executive.
President- Rosaline Obah, NW Regional
Communication Secretary of the PCC
Vice President-Nde Richard
Lajong,Journalist with Radio Evangelium/Publisher /Editor Herald Tribune NP
Secretary General-Chifu George,
Publisher/Editor The Website Newspaper
Vice Secretary, Ngeh Gerald, NW Bureau
Chief LTM TV
Financial Secretary, Mbi
Clementine,Journalist/Press Officer Free HIV NW/SW Project CBC Health Services
Treasurer-Woloko Emmanuel, Station Manager
CBC Radio Bamenda
Social Coordinators, Ambe Macmillan,
Afrique Nouvelle Radio
Philo
Happi, Eden Newspaper
Public Relations Officer, Bakah
Derick, Abakwa FM Radio/Hilltopvoices blog.
Advisers: Choves Loh, NW Regional Chief SOPECAM
Jeff Ngawe, NW
Correspondent Hot News Newspaper
Eric Metomo,
Publisher/Editor Chronicle Newspaper
Chongsi Joseph, Executive
Director CHRAPA
Chris Mbunwe, NW Bureau
Chief The Post Newspaper
Barrister Kemende Henry, NW
Batonnier Representative/CEO Posterity Chamber (Legal Adviser)
This team
has been putting hands on deck ahead of this week’s activities. To all the
members I wish to thank them for their selfless efforts to ensure that this
week comes to pass successfully.
World Press Freedom
Day
This year’s
celebration will be observed on the theme,” Let Journalism Thrive! Towards
Better Reporting, Gender Equality and
Media Safety in this Digital Age.” This theme contains very salient issues
which I must say is very timely especially in this age. In joining the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO to reflect on
such a thought provoking theme, we ponder over the changing influence of
commercialization and concentration of ownership which impacts on independence
and quality journalism. Also with ever more sophisticated surveillance
mechanisms, anonymity of sources could be a thing of the past. Is it possible
to keep journalists’ sources confidential in this digital age? Can journalism
move forward without anonymity of sources? After the Beijing Declaration and
platform for action in 1995 with some of its goals to increase the
participation and access of women in decision making especially through the
media with new technologies of communication and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the
media, twenty years on, obstacles are still present in today’s media industry
ranging from imbalanced access to information and under-representation of
women in very daring areas of the
profession, with fewer male colleagues involved in gender reporting not leaving
out violence against female journalists and women as a whole. We want to pray
that the one day workshop CAMASEJ NW has organized for journalists at the Muna
Foundation in Mbengwi, on April 30, 2015 will give us more insight into all
these challenges and new skills for better reporting in order for us to be
fully equipped to embrace this digital age with its challenges. Let me at this
point reveal to you officially the week long programme of CAMASEJ-NW for the
week.
While
promising the Government of Cameroon and stakeholders in the Region of our
readiness to work for the development of our beloved country and the Region in
particular, we will like to call on the Government and other public authorities
to give all journalists practicing in Cameroon the right to information. At the
same time we regret the mistreatment of journalists at state events by
officials and hereby call on all public authorities not to treat journalists as
underdogs and beggars. On the other
hand our clarion call to colleagues this entire week will be to stamp out, “Ngombo
journalism,”which has reduced them to the chasing of 500francs or a
bottle of drink after a full day of coverage by politicians and those who want
to selfishly use journalists to rise to the top. We should rather strive to maintain our
integrity and dignity and instill some sanity to this profession. Dear
Colleagues as we go about celebrating this week, SAY NO TO GOMBO
JOURNALISM, SAY NO TO PUBLIC AUTHORITIES DOWNGRADING YOU FOR VERY SELFISH
REASONS AND RATHER SAY YES TO RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM AND IF ALL OF US DO THIS,
THEN THIS PROFESSION WILL EMBRACE A NEW DAWN, A NEW BEGINNING TOWARDS BETTER
REPORTING AND ONLY THEN DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS JOURNALISM WILL THRIVE. Thanks
for your kind attention.
Long live CAMASEJ NW
Long LIVE World Press
Freedom