Every year, the distribution of the Public Assistance Fund for the Pressis preceded by often discourteous campaigns tending to sow discord and discord among those responsible for the distribution of the fund.
The year 2023 does not seem, unfortunately, to be an exception to the rule. Some lobbies in the press industryoperating in so-called pressure groups, have been trying for some time to carry out a sneaky campaign against the professionals of the paper press, both French-speaking and Arabic-speaking.
Predators of the paper press in close ranks
The objective of these lobbies is to seek by all means to minimize this paper press under fallacious arguments. Until then, the aforementioned actors were content to note without reacting, to avoid any unhealthy controversy.
Fortunately, those responsible for distributing aid to the press, as well as the executives of the High Authority for the Press and Audiovisual (HAPA)starting with their presidents, know perfectly well the role and place of this press which is in reality the pioneer of the independent press in Mauritania.
Indeed, professional journals like The Calame, The Authentic, The Renovator, Weekly Awakening, with their sites, as well as their Arabic-speaking colleagues with evocative titles, have largely contributed to shaping the media landscape since the birth of the independent press.
They ignore the pioneering role of the paper press in Mauritania
In reality, the argument put forward by this so-called group is that “the written press does not exist”, and that it is only their sites that count, even though they do not represent a quarter of the fight that the written press has been leading for decades.
Street newspaper sellers in Nouakchott – Credit Mauriweb
Newspapers, in addition to certain respectable sites that can be counted on the fingers of one hand, are in reality the last representatives of the credible press in Mauritania. They have their headquarters, pay even a small staff, pay water and electricity as well as printing costs from the National Printing Office. They contribute to the national archive and constitute credibility supports in an environment where the overwhelming majority of sites fuel disinformation, misinformation, defamation and trivialization of the profession.
With more than 3,000 publications for L’Authentique, more than 2,000 for Le Rénovateur, and as many for Le Calame and l’Eveil-Hebdo, these old and respectable publications are the pride of the profession. All these newspapers resist the vagaries of the profession no matter what.
Novices who want to be greater than their predecessors
Those who attempt the hazardous adventure of disqualifying them, for the most daring of them, only have a few hundred publications, often personal moods, and are for the most part recently published on the media scene.
Newspapers still have their readers in Mauritania – Crédit Saharamedia
In addition, Press Aid was initially intended only for the printed press. It was later extended to the electronic press, then to audiovisual media and associations.
In terms of costs and employment, the predominant place of the paper press
This subsidy was, in the mind of the Mauritanian legislator, to contribute to alleviating the structural challenges faced by newspapers in relation to their fixed costs, rental of headquarters, staff salaries, water, electricity, landline telephone, Internet, printing …
The economic difficulties which have hit the Mauritanian press in recent years have unfortunately contributed to the disappearance of several titles. Today, only four old French-speaking titles remain: L’Authentique, le Rénovateur, Le Calame and l’Eveil-Hebdo.
Failing to substantially improve their existence, aid to the press must contribute to increasing their productivity. Because, to their credit, several thousand editions, equivalent to millions of ouguiyas of investment to continue to play their avant-garde role in the dissemination of good and true information.
A deflation of the media space
Born in the 90s for a greater part of its actors, the media space was dominated until the beginning of 2000 essentially by the press in the paper newspaper version. The emergence of electronic sites, the poor organization of the profession, open to all winds, without any criteria applied for its exercise, will create media over-obesity which has brought information desperadoes onto the market. People without journalistic training and whose only credo is mercenarism without any respect for established rules.
Media context in Mauritania
The creation of the Public Assistance Fund for the Press in 2009 was a parade put in place by the regime of Mohamed Abdel Aziz, to compensate for the suppression decided by a decree of the Prime Minister, Yahya Hademine, of subsidies and public advertisements that the bosses press companies managed to negotiate with administrations.
From a few hundred newspapers, sites and associations, the press aid fund, although the envelope would be doubled for 2023, would thus become a covetous item for newcomers to the market. The height of irony is that they seek to exclude professional journalists, with extensive experience and training in the profession and in its practice over the past two or three decades. All the stakes are there, and the available kitty is not sufficient for everyone, in the absence of a law on the press, the conclusions of which entrusted to a commission have still been slow to come out of the government drawers since three years. Which shows the power of the non-journalist lobbies who have infested the sector and who know that they would be put out of business if such a law were passed and promulgated.
Everything except a strong and developed press
From the beginning of the democratic experiment to the present day, successive regimes in Mauritania have all sought to disrupt the emergence of a free and prosperous press. Hence the infiltration that the profession has suffered throughout its experience, with the emergence of several mercenaries of the pen, whose role was to misdirect the profession and make its actors and their productions non-credible. The “peshmerga” of the 90s and 2000s were to be succeeded by information manipulators in the digital age. The removal of access to subscriptions and public advertisements which had begun to enrich certain independent media and make them more capable of carrying out their mission of denunciation, would thus leave room for a rogue fund whose distribution is only one form of ephemeral breath of life to a press pushed year after year towards impoverishment and homelessness. This is why many press owners are calling for a return to the old order of subscriptions and public advertisements, which since 2009 have become the preserve of the public press, stuffed with billions of ouguiyas for their annual budget.
It is true that at the time of its splendor, the independent press played a central role in the evolution of democracy, citizen awakening and the awareness of populations on social, economic and cultural issues.
The drying up of sources of funding for the press has thus reduced editorial offices to the status of dependents on a meager press fund, crumbs divided between a plethora of sites, radios, televisions, newspapers, associations, the majority of which do not exists more than on paper. Not to mention that nearly 60% of the envelope goes to the very mediocre services of the national printing press and a large part to training, not to mention the lion’s share shared by the members of the distribution commission who are supposed to be volunteers without right to subsidies.
Newspapers are the backbone of the independent written press.
Also, the funds intended for newspapers are only a fair reward for their entrepreneurial efforts.
This distribution key, a tiny part of which is intended for them each year, far from covering their colossal expenses, should in reality reflect the fruit of their contribution to the establishment of democracy and the plurality of information, in the fight against mismanagement and corruption, attacks on human rights, good political and economic governance.
This fight has been waged by paper newspapers since the advent of democracy in the 1990s, in the wake of the La Baule speech.
A misguided distribution of press funds
The French-speaking press in Mauritania – Crédit Aisara
Certainly, there have been many misuse in the allocation of aid to the press. Normally, private radio and television stations belonging to businessmen, as well as press associations, should not appear in the list of beneficiaries. It is also out of the question to consider bloggers (Facebook page hosts) like journalists, because they are not, the aid being in principle intended only for press organs, which is not their case.
On the other hand, the status of members of the press assistance commission, based on voluntary work, must in no way be associated with any remuneration. The salaries they award themselves at the expense of the law constitute an illegal drain on public funds.
Clean up the Committee responsible for the public aid fund for the press
This is where the real fight must be to clean up the management of the press support fund.
Finally, Press Assistance must not whet the appetite of certain pseudo-defenders of a certain stupid preference brandished by preachers in troubled waters who play lessons.
The press, whether Arabic-speaking, French-speaking, or in national languages, electronic, audiovisual or on paper, must be respected in its diversity, as enshrined in the law on the press and the legal texts governing it within the framework of media pluralism .
Sheikh Aïdara