It’s a rather surreal and improbable scene, experienced by viewers of Gabon 1ère and broadcast in heavy rotation throughout the past weekend.
The Minister of Communication and Media took a journalism course in front of information and communication professionals – the Director General of Gabon 1ère in particular – whose service record does not suffer from any ambiguity and CONTESTATION. This great state official was lynched in public and delivered to popular vindictiveness for having done his job: journalism.
Data processing
The crime of lèse majesté accused by Laurence Ndong of our colleagues is to have devoted large sections, on the 8 p.m. news, to the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), the former single party which reigned over Gabon for 55 years before its fall following the coup d’état of August 30.
This hated party made the news last weekend. Through a cleverly orchestrated tactic, its executives pulled off a real magic trick to resurface like the good old days.
Gabon 1time and his CEO, Helmut Motchinga Boulignui devoted three topics to this exit of the CEO marked by the dismissal of Ali Bongo Ondimba from the leadership of the party founded by his father Omar Bongo Ondimba on March 12, 1968 and even the removal of Patience Dabany, former wife of Omar Bongo.
In the eyes of the former opponent, now regent of the public audiovisual space, the journalists of Gabon 1ere would have failed in their sense of ethical professional duty.
Nothing might be further from the truth, for the simple reason that most of the news – particularly political – this weekend came from the “Louis” district, the headquarters of the CEO where silence and lethargy began to question for a political formation which has been intertwined with the State for 56 years.
Basic Journalism Techniques
The criteria for selecting, processing and prioritizing information, taught in all journalism schools, would like this news to be highlighted.
Gabon 1ère might not fail to give pride of place to this news which also appeared on all the press and audiovisual headlines in the French-speaking world, with RFI, France 24 and TV5 as references. These media had a field day.
Witch hunt
In the followingmath of the “liberation coup” of August 30, 2023, the President of the transition opportunely called on professionals to process information in complete balance, neutrality and objectivity.
Obviously, the latest outing of the Minister of Communication and Media is the antithesis of this instruction and probably takes us back to the leaden years of a tenuous and spied on press. Veterans of the profession remembered the time when Zachary Myboto, the all-powerful Minister of Communication, burst into newsrooms with his red Bic.
In any case, we might expect everything from the Minister of Communication and Media, but not this poorly tuned symphony, far from the melodies that built his reputation as a defender of freedom of expression. Just freedoms.
Subsidiary questions: Is the witch hunt finally on? Should we therefore fear the guillotine for not having pleased the seaside palace or the media boss? Simple questions.
Feeodora Madiba
2024-03-13 16:43:05
#cut #Helmut #Boulingui #cheer #return #state #censorship
