Ivorian journalists raise the alarm about declining press freedom

Journalists in Ivory Coast are raising the alarm about what they say is government attempts to shackle their profession and control it.

While press freedom is more established there than in other west African countries, it remains precarious.

In recent months, the government's bid to impose a new leader on the National Union of Ivorian Journalists has sparked protests over an "unprecedented" bid to impose control.

In March, the International Federation of Journalists condemned the authorities' "blatant interference" in the UNJCI, the profession's main trade union.

Ivory Coast and Benin also face a complaint filed by press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) over a recent crackdown against Beninese journalist Hugues Comlan Sossoukpe,

He has been critical of his country's former president Patrice Talon and was arrested in Ivory Coast last July and extradited to Benin where he was prosecuted,

"In Ivory Coast, we journalists like to say freedom of expression exists but freedom after expression doesn't," says veteran journalist Cesar Etou.

The editor of opposition newspaper “La Voie Originale”, Etou says there had been more than 50 penalties targeting the paper, which is close to former president Laurent Gbagbo.

They include warnings, fines, suspension of publication, and summonses, he says.

He adds that even though Ivory Coast does not impose prison sentences for press offences, the authorities can "take journalists in for questioning for hours on end" if they chose to.

RSF says press freedom is still closely tied to the political environment, with some political parties and leaders still exerting considerable influence on the media.

It has also highlighted a general lack of security, particularly for the small number of Ivorian investigative journalists.

It said they often faced "attempts at bribery or intimidation, such as threats to disclose personal data, as well as arrests".

Some journalists said they self-censor to avoid problems.

Communications Minister Amadou Coulibaly, who is also the government's spokesman, has rebuffed the criticism, pointing to a need to fight fake news online that is sometimes picked up by the media.

"We do not kill journalists in Ivory Coast. We do not imprison them," he said last month.

"It's normal for them to be questioned as part of legal proceedings, provided they are questioned freely," he said.

Journalist Noel Yao, the founder and first head of the UNJCI, says reporters make a precarious living, as the print media is highly politicised and in decline.

"There are journalists who don't get a salary at the end of the month or are paid in spare parts, as the saying goes," he says.

Journalists rarely get the salaries they are entitled to under the profession's collective agreement with the authorities -- from around $480 a month for an editor, to $1,000 for an editor-in-chief.

As a result, Yao says it is common for journalists to accept per diems from event organisers.

That goes some way towards compensating for excessively low salaries but can result in coverage of the events being biased in the organisers' favour..

Media boss Charles Tra-Bi, whose publications specialise in agriculture, also lamented the financial and ethical problems plaguing the sector.

Some "newspapers just cut and paste what they see" on social media, he says.

“The press doesn’t pay well these days. So, people who go into this line of work feel insecure, and that doesn’t encourage a sense of responsibility,” he says.

Only a few private online and broadcast media outlets are managing to hold their own but they often have to rely on the support of patrons.

Fatoumata Kaloga is a 26-year-old journalist at 7info, one of the private television channels established since state broadcaster RTI lost its monopoly in 2019.

"We aren't really free (to) expose, warn, and speak out about what is wrong in society," she says, “News organisations often have partnerships with companies, which means there are stories we simply can’t cover.

But despite the low salaries and a challenging environment, this Kaloga still wants to continue reporting on her country, which she sees as being full of "potential".