African Media Barometer Cameroon

Since the 2011 African Media Barometer, Cameroon’s media landscape has become extremely dull with apparently the journalists themselves to blame. One of the main reasons for this is the rife corruption in which Cameroonian journalists easily accepted to be drawn into. Due to the increasing corruption journalistic professions have been suffering a loss of respect for their basic tenets. Those journalists though, that try to keep their profession upright have been struggling to convince the public of the honourable work they are doing. Having the above setting in mind, media professionals as well as observers of the Cameroonian media landscape are regarding two major developments since 2011 as valuable. First of all the introduction of the Public National Communication Council which acts as media regulator today and takes credit for bringing greater openness and transparency to its work by publishing a document that clearly explains procedures for receiving public complaints about the media. Second of all, the establishment of the National Communication Forum in 2012, which addresses certain issues that are fundamental to the media’s development. The forum proposed a self-regulatory mechanism as well as a state-run Private Media Development Fund which were both welcomed as means to contribute to an ethically sound and financially viable media landscape in Cameroon. Overall, the media shows a bad performance when regarding its developments in the years since 2011. Cameroon is facing a great challenge in regaining public confidence and reasserting the relevance of the media in the country’s general development.