By Moma Sandrine
Journalists in the North West Region (NWR) have recounted the difficulty they encounter in accessing information. According to them, since the start of the crisis in the region, getting news sources is quite challenging.
As the press freedom day approaches, The SUN sought the opinion of some journalists with regards to accessing information in the North West Region. “Getting information in Bamenda is like a Carmel going through the eye of a needle because, coupled with the crisis, there are certain areas that you don’t dare and that makes it difficult for a journalist to get information which he or she is supposed to pass out to the public. Sometimes you go to get information and you are told ‘you need to go to the hierarchy, get authorization from Yaounde or get authorization from an administrator before you come for me to grant you an interview’. It makes the work of a journalist so difficult and cumbersome”, Nde Richard of radio evangelium explains.
Getting to interview people is as difficult as having access to some areas to get information as Ndasi Gilbert of CBS Radio puts it: “Sometimes when you have tips about some human interest stories like accidents and you want to go get more facts, it’s difficult to do so if such incidents happen in places that are recognized as risk zones. For example, going towards mile 90 or the Bamenda-Mbengwi highway, it’s difficult to get sources from there. People too are very scared talking to journalists. Sometimes people have good information to give you but they fear that they may be targeted for haven said something”, Ndasi narrates.
With the turnout of events in the region, sometimes getting government officials grant an interview to a journalist working for a private press is also quite challenging as Ndasi furthered “government officials turn to scare away from talking to the private press. I don’t know why, but it might just be because they think that the private media is there to fight the government which is something I don’t believe in. I just think the private media is there to create a balance in communication”.
To Chris Mbunwe, reporter for The Post Newspaper, journalists in the NWR are working in a hostile terrain and access to information is really difficult. “In the NWR you have the amba, the elite forces and others. Where you are is the battle ground so you find it difficult to have access to information. Movements are very difficult because places are not open, roads are blocked. You can face a bullet from two directions. You don’t know where to go and at what time so quite often, you have to call the sources that are on the ground. For instance if they say they’ve killed some people in Tabiken or Binkah, you need to call somebody who is there because you cannot easily travel to such places to get first hand information. It is very difficult. At times it takes you about a day or two”.
As the international press freedom day approaches, journalists in the NWR hope to have better access to information. This year, the press freedom day is being celebrated under the theme Media for democracy, journalism and elections in time of disinformation.