No one in the Anglophone Cameroon media space is oblivious to the ongoing bras de fer between the ICT University and the University of Buea. Like every other public-interest contest, the media has not been left out, serving both as weapon and stakeholder.
In one of the exchanges, a key actor brandished a 65-page CV as proof of legitimacy and experience. In this era of blurred lines between traditional and social media, the spectacle quickly filtered into newsrooms, and the media has been having a field day with it.
Now that the 65-page CV is trending, there is no better time to turn the mirror on ourselves as Cameroonian journalists.
Questions of standardisation recently split hairs when members of the Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ) met at their Annual General Assembly in Limbe. To understand the fuss, one must first confront a long-standing reality: in Cameroon, the boundaries of who is considered a journalist have historically been rather elastic.
Historians, economists, English language experts and sometimes individuals without formal higher education have all found space within the profession. Granted, the honey of journalism is ultimately in its output. But the bees, the hives and the nectar are what make the process worth it in the first place.
These are the ingredients CAMASEJ now seeks to standardise. Under its revised statutes, the Association recognises a journalist as someone with at least a Higher National Diploma in journalism (with some conditional variations). The emphasis is on ensuring verified journalism training.
My own journey into journalism has come with its share of revelations. One of the earliest was discovering that the beautiful studios we admire are often just green screens. Another was realising that the news presenters who seemed to know everything were, quite professionally, reading carefully prepared scripts.
But perhaps the biggest shock was learning that many of the journalists I grew up reading had never sat in a journalism class, not even once.
Like any structured profession, journalism education does not only transmit skills, it also grounds practitioners in the professional ethics that should guide the trade. And in reality, those ethical foundations have sometimes been wanting in the work, lifestyles and processes of some practitioners we encounter.
To be fair, this is not the norm. Some of the most ethical and professional journalists in Cameroon are products of unconventional paths. But isolated excellence is not sufficient justification for leaving the floodgates of the profession wide open.
And as actors in the industry it is our duty to not only point fingers but also to pick up and mount the boulders that restrict entry. CAMASEJ’s new statutes attempt exactly that. Current members without the required academic qualifications have a two-year grace period to regularise their status.
Section 5, Subsection IV of the revised constitution states: Any person who does not meet the criteria set out in Articles i, ii and iii will have a grace period of two (2) years from the date of adoption of this revised constitution to comply.
The obvious question follows: how feasible is it for someone who has practised for decades to return to the classroom?
Perhaps easier than we think. Even outside CAMASEJ’s push, many practitioners have done exactly that, driven by professional pride, career advancement, and the search for greater legitimacy.
The degrees or certifications to be earned will not be awarded to the Association and neither will the knowledge gained in the process. They all go back to solidify the base of the journalist, trickling into Cameroon’s journalism stream.
In a perfect world, the Association achieving this for every member and tightening that entry will pave way for a happy ending we all dream of. Yet even in a that best-case scenario, CAMASEJ putting its house in order is only part of the solution.
Cameroon’s media landscape remains highly fragmented. Numerous associations exist for reporters, publishers and other media actors, often organised along lines of language, interest, geography and professional niche.
Much like our more than 200 political parties, this fragmentation is often defended as evidence of freedom of association. But the absence of a strong umbrella regulatory structure remains a weak link in the system.
CAMASEJ’s move is commendable but not sufficient on its own.
Who, ultimately, regulates journalism membership in Cameroon?
Which body systematically verifies the credentials of those seeking professional recognition?
Who ensures that impostors are identified and shown the door?
And who will bell the cat in a sector that operates with such limited coordinated oversight?
Who gains from the grey zones?
Quietly, almost comfortably, many actors appear to be enjoying the disorder. For some reporters allergic to the rigour the craft demands, the blurred lines offer convenient cover. For outright impostors, the chaos is the oxygen they breathe as they parade the halls of the Hilton hotel, a daily ritual that baptises them as Hiltoniers.
For certain media owners, the absence of firm standards keeps labour cheap and questions few. No contracts mean cheap labour, little or no responsibility for staff welfare and no judgement from the powers that be. This permits them to get away with having no contracts, no insurance, no predictable safety nets for many who labour daily in the field.
In such an environment, the illusion of short-term advantage is dangerously seductive. The media owner who cuts corners on staff welfare, the impostor who thrives in the grey zones, the reporter who coasts without sharpening the craft all may appear to be winning something in the moment. But the arithmetic of disorder is unforgiving. An industry that cannot protect its workers cannot sustainably price its work and the take home package can hardly take anyone home.
And for the state, an industry too fragmented to speak with one professional voice is hardly an uncomfortable situation. In fact, it is every politician’s paradise, one that keeps them smiling when the going is good and one that keeps them hopeful when their sons attempt to catch up with them.
In the end, the dysfunction feeds many tables which is precisely why reform, however necessary, continues to move at a hesitant crawl. The cost of this prolonged disorder is ultimately economic. When entry into the profession is loosely guarded, the market quickly floods with underpriced labour and uneven quality, driving down the value of journalistic work across the board.
Advertising and other components of media economics follow credibility, and credibility follows standards. Weaken the latter and the revenue base begins to wobble. For an ecosystem like ours where this has been the norm for so long, the base has long wobbled and at this point is barely a reflection of what it ought to be.
Newsrooms struggling to distinguish professionalism from mere presence find it harder to command premium ads, attract serious investment or convince audiences to pay for content. What looks like harmless chaos in the short term quietly erodes the business model of the entire sector leaving even the most disciplined players to compete in a race to the bottom. This accounts for why even the most credible of our media organs have their own pages in the book of journalistic views.
In truth, many of those who think they are gaining are quietly losing ground, while those who already feel squeezed grow more miserable with every passing news cycle. More like the less you know or accept to know, the happier you are.
But for how long will we pretend to be oblivious to all these as we call other sectors and 65-page cv owners to order?
The questions still outnumber the answers.
In the end, the headlines will move on, the CVs will get longer but stop trending and the noise will fade, as it always does.
But the questions will remain and posterity will judge us harshly. And unlike with the CV story, apologies alone will not fix anything. Action will.
Apparently…