The Togolese Media Observatory (OTM) organized its traditional meeting with the media and partners on May 3, 2023 on the occasion of International Press Freedom Day. After taking stock of the last 12 months marked among other things by suspensions of publications, fines, arrest of journalists and charges for press offences, the court of peers makes recommendations to the various actors.
The OTM urges media professionals to ensure compliance with the rules of ethics, professional conduct and the provisions of the Press and Communication Code. They are also called upon to make rational use of social networks, encourage and promote brotherhood within the corporation and to Cultivate more responsibility and sincerity in professional relations.
With regard to Professional Media Organisations, the OTM recommends speeding up the process for the application of the Collective Agreement, working towards the professionalization of press organisations, giving priority to the interests of the corporation and promote and ensure the application of the media fee schedule decided at the Kara meeting. Furthermore, they are invited “to encourage and support the continuous training of journalists, encourage and support the grouping of the media into press groups and to encourage the idea of merging professional press organisations”.
The recommendations for the regulatory and self-regulatory bodies range from extending the period of validity of the press card to five (05) years to simplifying the formalities for renewing the press card, improved relations with media professionals. They are invited to “cultivate listening at the level of regulatory and self-regulatory bodies, to take into account the opinions of professional press organizations in major decisions; to work for the federation of professional organizations and to work on joint “media” projects”.
The Government is invited to, ensure the protection of journalists in the exercise of their profession, accelerate the implementation of the Press support and development fund, grant tax facilities to press companies, develop a business climate more favorable to press companies Apply article 52 of the Press and Communication Code relating to the State subsidy to the press for media coverage of electoral consultations.
It is also recommended that the latter adopt the implementing decree for the Florence Convention and the Nairobi Protocol, ratified by Togo since November 16, 2009. To support the local press, the Governor must, according to the OTM, “encourage the support of technical and financial partners for the press, accelerate the transformation of public media into an office, offer better working conditions to media professionals working for the public, accelerate the migration of from analogue to digital, to implement the recommendations of the general assembly of the press”.
Atha ASSAN