At CCMN Workshop, Journalists Challenged to Blog

At CCMN Workshop, Journalists Challenged to Blog

It was on Friday June 29th 2019 that members of the North West Chapter of the Cameroon Community Media Network (CCMN) met at the Presbyterian Church Centre, Ntamulung, Bamenda  to lay down modalities for the effective commencement of the second phase of the Peace Journalism and Conflict Transformation Project being implemented by the Communication Department of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon through the Cameroon Community Media Network (CCMN).

The Cameroon Community Media Network (CCMN) is an association of community media houses and community media practitioners with the goal to promote the development of the community media sector in Cameroon and establish conflict-sensitive journalism as alternative to conventional reporting (Source: CCMN Facebook Page)

Participants pose for a family photo

After a welcome address from the network's president Obah Rose, working groups were formed in which members were tasked to do a situational analysis of the current Anglophone Crisis in the North West Region in the cultural, social, economic and political domains.  They were also charged to name and discuss the effects of the conflict on any case study community, outlining the actors involved, how and why they are affected. Lastly, attendees were urged to unveil challenges and opportunities brought by the conflict to the media and propose a way forward.

From the presentations by the various group leaders, the responses were almost the same. Culturally, there's been an escalation between the Fulani and Aghem community in Wum, palaces have been deserted as many fons have relocated to urban towns and annual traditional festivals like "Lela" in Bali, "Ngonnso" in Nso  are no longer organised. Socially, there's been heightened insecurity, poor waste management in the city of Bamenda, high death rate and absence of sporting jamborees. Economically participants affirmed that there's increase in cost of living, unemployment, dwindling business and heightened economic hardship. In the political sphere, findings revealed that politicking is now seemingly a taboo as party rallies and anniversaries plus campaigning and elections can no longer be freely staged. Politicians too have become a soft target reason why many have been forced to  relocate.

At the level of the media, the challenges are almost becoming unbearable. From frequent power cuts to no income, no salaries, high censorship and too much music than programs, the cry is same everywhere. However, in the midst of these challenges, there's a way out, reason why the media men and women were called upon to increase advocacy on the need for both parties to protect rather than destroy social amenities like electricity, water and thrash trucks/cans. In addition, they were encouraged to go in for projects, a good income gerenerstion source, protect and create new news sources. Lastly, they must be daring and responsible while upholding the ethics of the profession.

The major outcome of the workshop was a special presentation by Bakah Derick, North Bureau Chief of The Guardian Post Newspaper on Integrating Traditional Media into Social Media in which he encouraged all radio and TV stations plus newspapers to own blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts reason being that the media landscape is fast changing and as such, outlets must update to current trends. A great part of his presentation was used for practical lessons during which the network members went online through their phones and laptops. Step by step directives were then given on how to create and customize a blog at the end of which about five new blogs were created.

Fon Quinta creating her news blog

Fon Quinta is a TV reporter. Amazed with the process, after closely following instructions, she successfully created her own blog, www.fonsnewsdiary@blogspot.com which she shall be using to report news. "Attending CCMN meeting in Bamenda today, it was exceptional because we had lessons on how to create a blog and the one I just created, I'll be using it for news updates" she said. Quinta hopes to always report on her blog at least four times a week.

Despite calls for journalists to create and effectively run constantly updated social media platforms like news blogs, Tweeter and Facebook accounts, many still limit themselves to WhatsApp forums. To Bakah Derick, the workshop facilitator, it's just an issue of personal organisation and lack of interest. "I think it's a cultural issue. You know it's not been our thing here and so we are only trying to incorporate that" he added. He also revealed that many of the international journalists we have as mentors do a lot of social media work yet most of his colleagues haven't noticed that radio, TV and newspaper reports have a very short lifespan but when such are put online, the lifespan becomes practically forever and that's where one gains international exposure. "A journalist in Cameroon is not different from a journalist in the U.S but we have opted to limit ourselves by our failure to use these social media platforms correctly" he opined.

Bakah Derick, N.W Bureau Chief, The Guardian Post, Resource Person 

One of the best and highly used social media platform is Tweeter yet very few journalists understand how to use it. Some created accounts there probably out of curiosity and can't even recall their passwords nor address.  The goodness and exceptionality of Tweeter according to Derick, the resource person is that it's the best platform to run campaigns around the world through hash tags and handles. He explained that hash tags are the key words or phrases that people use to build a conversation and helps users to situate all what's been reported around the given topic. For example #Journalism4Peace.  "If I want to address myself to the president of the United States, it just suffices me to know his Tweeter handle, e.g @DonaldTrump, tag it to a tweet whose subject I know will be of interest to him and he will read me. I don't need to write him a long letter or travel to America." Bakah Derick ended.

It is now left for the journalists to put into practice the lessons learnt. As the war in Anglophone Cameroon rages on, media persons have been intensifying the implementation of peace journalism principles in their reports in order not to escalate the conflict but rather construct and mend the broken society.