Abstract

This study examines the Public media and self-censorship in the Buea Municipality with the case of the CRTV Mount Cameroon FM.

Self-censorship in the media comes with the suppression of information intentionally and voluntarily from the public when formal impediments are absent.

The data from administered questionnaires which reveals that self-censorship is an everyday activity in the newsrooms and in the lives of media practitioners. This write-up seeks to show how self-censorship in the media functions and reasons why.

Theories such as the Spiral of Silence best explain this study. In this research, questionnaires were administered and observations which at the end made the intern affirm that the media whether or not they affirm to it, practice self-censorship from within or without.

This report is based on the practice self-censorship in the media especially in public media with an introduction to this research.

This boils down to different theories which relate to the media and self-censorship like the Spiral of Silence theory. There are concepts to back up the work and an empirical review of the report…

Also, the data presentation makes use pie chats to represent each data collected as well as some recommendations to the topic and limitations to this research and an appendix as a finishing touch. According to the data received and the analysis, self-censorship is gvpracticed in media organs in Cameroon as well as the CRTV Mount Cameroon FM.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Of The Study

In recent times, it has been noticed in Cameroon that everybody is practicing journalism be it trained or untrained.

This is manifested in for example the fact that people receive information and disseminate without any fact checking or credibility check of the information.

This accounts for why the social media heads in the practice of citizen journalism and the spread or dissemination of fake news and unverified information.

There are some basic ethics that govern the practice of journalism in and out of Cameroon like every other profession but, this has been abused by the many users of the social media who do not censor information or images before disseminating.

For example, people witness scenes, take photographs of even corpses and disseminate whether or not the concerned family is pleased and consequently, invading into people’s privacy.

Others take photographs of even naked people without mere respect for human dignity and disseminate. We have cases of people who even run commentaries without respect for ethics. Yes, Cameroon is a democratic country but should this be abused?

The responsibilities of the media remain entertaining, informing and educating the public and all and every time but then, following keenly the norms and ethics that govern the profession.

A practical example of how the media and its users failed was with the trending story of the passing of a Cameroonian makeup artist ‘Karen’.

All sorts of stories were propagated by the public on social media. Some said she was killed by her boyfriend, others said she was a member secret cult and others she was poisoned.

This is in no way respect for the dead Karen and her family. In such cases, we quickly see that self-censorship in the media is lacking and practiced by a few.

Journalists in Cameroon have been accused for their inability to properly judge information according to standard journalism practice and ethics before broadcast.

This has immediately provoked a problem with the National Communication Council [NCC] headed by Joe Chebonkeng K.

Before now, during the reign of Peter Esoka, he did several tours emphasizing that journalists should adhere to journalism ethics because good journalism practice demands good respect for others.

The journalism practice has a responsibility to the public, to the media house owners and to themselves. Now; this is where self-censorship comes in that is; Censorship by the media house in view of its editorial policies, censorship in view of the concerns of the public and censorship by the journalists themselves in respect to their own integrity.

Balancing journalism’s twin goals of telling the public what it wants to know and what it needs to know is not only an ethical matter for journalists but, a very real concern for media consumers.

Although the ideal situation would be for the media to be free as well as independent in information sharing in a bit to efficiently play their role in the society, the double-sided nature of the media influence calls for a degree of regulation in limiting hate speech and other vices.

While there is much documentation for instance by Press Freedom Organizations that self –censorship exists in African media, there is less evidence and investigation of the processes that actually lead to the self-censorship practice as seen from the journalistic view point.

The question on whether or not this practice acts as a threat to professionally trained journalists as it puts in question their commitment to truth telling and professional identity, preoccupies many.

Self- censorship in the media comes with the suppression of information intentionally and voluntarily from the public when formal impediments are absent [Daniel Bar- Tal].

For various reasons, individuals decide to conceal information either to family members, leaders, fellow group members believing that there is cost in revealing information and thus, choose not to reveal it.

There are two forms of media censorship; censorship proper and self –censorship. Censorship occurs when a state, political, religious or a private party prohibits information from reaching the public while self –censorship occurs when the journalist prevents the publication of an information out of fear for being called up in court, injury or other economic consequences and also working in line with the media organ under which he or she operates’ editorial policy. The most powerful media influence lies in what is not revealed.

In the year 2000, the Pew Research Center and the Columbia Journalism Review concluded a survey of nearly 300 journalists and news executives and the bottom line was that self-censorship is commonplace in the news media today.

Many newsworthy stories have been purposely killed and many reporters have acknowledged they have softened the tone of their stories to   benefit the interests of their news organizations.

Dale T. Miller in his book ‘an invitation to social psychology’ writes about self-censorship and according to him, expressing and censoring self; ‘self-censorship is inherently neither good nor bad. Certainly, some acts of self- censorship reflect a failure of will but others reflect the presence of will power’.

[Nambu Bernadette Project 2019] The media has a significant initiative as a gatekeeper which sets the agenda for public discourse, but when censorship is priority, many issues do not get to the public.

However, such a gatekeeper initiative is undermined by the fact that the media likes to portray itself as ‘balanced and fair’ even when they seek to promote a particular ideology and limit the public the public’s exposure to a wide array of information.

The issue of self-censorship is closely affiliated to the ownership of the media organ in question. State owned media tend to withhold much more information than private owned media for fear of being locked up or suffer injury.

However, the governments controlling of the media is in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 of the UNO which states that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and seek, receive and import information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. So it is a truism that the silencing of unpopular ideas can be observed without an official ban.

This research has come out to examine the issue of censorship because the absence of self-censorship be it for the journalist themselves or the media houses can cause untold problems in any nation.

Practical examine we have the Rwandan genocide which was caused by unprofessional practice by Radio Mille Coslline in Rwanda where hate speech was propagated between the Tsutsi’s and Hutsi’ involving the Twa’s [minority].

Hate speech promotes animosity between people. Remember that one’s democracy ends where another’s begins…the fact that there is freedom of speech doesn’t give anyone the utterance to say whatever No. the media however, has the responsibility to accompany the government in its development strides and not promote hate speech thus,  self-censorship in the media.

1.2 Statement Of The Problem

This study seeks to investigate on the influence and reasons for self-censorship in the media with the case of The CRTV MOUNT CAMEROON FM giving that self-censorship or censorship is daily routine in all media houses be it private or public at different levels which sometimes poses as a hindrance or a problem to the journalist’s integrity and news sourcing.

 1.3 Research Question

This research is driven by the following research questions.

1] Primary Question

How do journalists of the CRTV MOUNT CAMEROON FM practice self-censorship?

2] Secondary Questions

What characterizes self-censorship among journalists of the CRTV Mount Cameroon FM-?

1.4 Objectives Of The Study

To know how journalists of the CRTV Mount Cameroon FM practice self-censorship.

To investigate the motivations or reasons for self-censorship as practiced by journalists of the CRTV Mount Cameroon FM.

1.5 Hypothesis

The hypothesis seeks to give proposed and direct answers to the research questions which are not scientifically proven.

Ho …There is the practice of self-censorship at the CRTV Mount Cameroon FM.

H1… There is no practice of self-censorship at the CRTV Mount Cameroon FM

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