MFWA: cut in advertisement & sale revenues affecting Media

The Media Foundation for West Africa is leading discussions into finding solutions to salvage the media in Africa from losing its grounds against the emergence of new technologies, Covid-19, political interferences and abuse.

The discussion has become critical because the work of journalists is becoming fragile and abrupt uncertainties due to cut in advertisement and sale revenues among others.

The Foundation, in this regard, hosted three different set of panels to discuss ‘The future of journalism in Africa’, ‘Navigating crisis: Covid-19 and the media in Africa’ and ‘Digitisation without monetisation: Tech and media sustainability in Africa.’

MFWA held the discussions under the West Africa Media Excellence Conference & Awards (WAMECA) 2020, dubbed: “Impacting lives through media excellence” in Accra on Thursday last week.

Executive Director of MFWA Sulemana Braimah said WAMECA 2020 is an annual gathering of media professionals and actors across the African continent.

“Even in the face of repression, attacks and harassment, journalists stayed on the frontlines to serve the people with critical information,” he said.

Mr Braimah said despite the media being spared the shocks of the pandemic, it could not escape the dire consequences saying “the impact of the pandemic has, in fact, only worsened an already fragile and precarious media ecosystem in Africa.

“Already, the media in Africa has been suffocating under various repressive laws, rampant attacks, harassment and intimidation by both state and non-state actors.

“Sadly, many of these crimes that are committed against journalists go unpunished thus, perpetuating a culture of impunity for crimes against journalists.”

The challenge has been exacerbated by cut in advertisements and sale revenue, by which hundreds of media organisations have been shut down and forcing equal number of journalists out of job. This situation, he said, accentuates the need for immediate steps to be taken to save the media in Africa, stressing “taking such steps requires meaningful brainstorming, synthesis of ideas and careful planning.”

Executive Secretary of National Media Commission (NMC), George Sarpong, on his part urged media practitioners to harness the opportunities being presented by the transition from analogue to digitalisation.

He also advised against the belief that digitalisation should be treated solely as technical issue and not policy.

On the panel discussions, one key message to the media in Africa was to embrace  the changing dynamism of modern technologies in order not to be left behind.

The post MFWA: cut in advertisement & sale revenues affecting Media appeared first on The Chronicle Online.

Read Full Story