The Guardian Post clocks 13!

The good, the bad & the ugly

By Amindeh Blaise Atabong

Amindeh Blaise Atabong

August 30, 2014 marked exactly thirteen years since The Guardian Post saw the light of day. Within the newspaper’s thirteen years of existence, all has not been entirely rosy or gloomy. In effect, The Guardian Post like any human endeavour has had its own share of good, bad and worst moments.

The good

Top most of the good moments The Guardian Post has enjoyed has been the newspaper’s regularity on the news market since its creation. For thirteen years, the newspaper has never stayed off the market for more than a week! If you don’t call this a feat in a country where the newspaper venture is considered as some sort of punishment for those who committed some undefined crimes, what name would you give to it?   

Secondly, readers have continued to testify that The Guardian Post is a must-read and keep for posterity newspaper not only because of its daring nature, middle-of-the road editorial policy, in-depth analysis but also because of the credibility the Yaounde-based daily newspaper has established for its self. The Guardian Post also prides itself with being the only newspaper in Cameroon that runs an editorial in all its editions; including several columns that target all age groups. The over four million Nigerian community that live in Cameroon has taken a lot of interest in The Guardian Post; thanks also to a regular page on happenings back in Nigeria. As it stands, the widely-accepted opinion that dominates public debates is that if one has not read The Guardian Post, then he or she has not read anything.

Little wonder, therefore that The Guardian Post is widely-read and held in very high esteem by the powers that be and members of the diplomatic community in Cameroon. The newspaper also enjoys an ever-growing readership; spread in all of Cameroon’s ten regions.

It is perhaps thanks to The Guardian Post’s credibility and authoritative nature that the newspaper has on several occasions been invited by the presidency to cover historic national and international ceremonies. Hardly has the presidency missed inviting The Guardian Post to cover the visits to Cameroon of foreign heads of state and other top ranking foreign personalities.

Professionally-speaking, The Guardian Post prides itself with having groomed or has some of the big names in the country’s media landscape who passed through the media house. They include among others: The publishers of The Standard Tribune, City Times, The Median, The Horizon, The Herald Tribune, The Reporter and Vanguard. The Guardian Post has equally served as a springboard for some of the big names in the state-owned CRTV. Just to name a few they include: Moki Edwin Kindzeka, Ngalla Killian Chimtom, Fonka Mutta, Winston Lebga and Belinda Shoh.

Another of our good moments is the success registered in organizing The Guardian Post Achievement Awards which was in its 10^th edition this year. The objectives behind the award are encouraging hard work, patriotism and promoting national unity; irrespective of the nature of the unity. Among some of the big names who have won The Guardian Post Achievement Award are: H.E President Paul Biya, The First Lady, Chantal Biya, the former US ambassador, Neils Mardquart, the former French ambassador, Georges Serre and the former Nigerian high commissioner to Cameroon, Edwin Edobor.

In a field where over 95% of the newspapers are run from beer parlours, motels and suite-cases, The Guardian Post should call it a fortune that it has one of the best and well-equipped newspaper head offices in the country and another branch office in the North West regional capital of Bamenda. With a staff strength of twenty-five and still counting and with none raising a finger against unpaid salary, shouldn’t The Guardian Post qualify this a huge success?  Doesn’t this singular feat call for applause?; especially given that in most print-media houses in Cameroon, the publisher alone does the job of editor, reporter, secretary, photographer, production manager, distribution and sales manager!        

On the international scene, The Guardian Post was one of only five media organs in Africa that were invited to Nigeria in December 2012 to cover the birth day party of the former Nigerian vice president  and front-line runner for the 2015 presidential elections in Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar. The newspaper was the only Cameroonian news organ that was invited to Rabat, Morocco, last year to cover the World Councils and Cities Summit.

The Guardian Post’s good moments in its thirteen-year existence was recently crowned with the: “Cameroon Leading English Language Newspaper Award” by the Bamenda-based weekly authoritative newspaper, Chronicle.

The bad moments      

The bad moments in the life of The Guardian Post have not been enough to distract the newspaper’s editorial and managerial staff. Top most of the bad moments which continue to haunt us to this day is the lack of sponsors and godfathers. As it stands, The Guardian Post is one of only few newspapers in Cameroon that do not have even one personality to look up to for sponsorship or rescue in times of need. At the origin of this posture that has been taken by several interest groups, is our refusal to accept to play the mouth-piece of Party A or Party B.

CPDM regime barons see The Guardian Post as an SDF newspaper that permanently criticizes government action while the SDF on the hand believes strongly that the newspaper is being sponsored by the Yaounde authorities to run down all their actions.

Most managers of state corporations we approach for advertising tell us bluntly that our critical and unbending editorial policy on government business and the Biya regime make it difficult for them to ever consider even inviting The Guardian Post to cover their events. Just recently, the general manager of a South West-based state corporation refused paying for an advert they had ordered to be placed in The Guardian Post simply because the advert appeared in the same publication that ran a special edition on SDF’s 24^th anniversary.

The ugly

The ugliest moments in the life of The Guardian Post came knocking at the close of the Year 2013. First, darkness enveloped our news room on September 5, 2013 when the National Communication Council suspended The Guardian Post for two months on grounds that the newspaper had published an opinion from a tradi-practitioner! That controversial suspension which smacked of scores-settling has continued to dominate public debates not only because the newspaper had never been given a prior warning but more so because even right up to this moment, media houses in the country are not only running write-ups on tradi-practitioners but advertising their drugs. So far, the National Communication Council has not suspended any of the media houses as it did to The Guardian Post!

After the two-month suspension, the publisher of The Guardian Post in an interview wondered how those who wanted the newspaper suspended expected the newspaper’s staff to feed their wives and school-going children. And even though no name was mentioned in the interview, some members of the Communication Council judged that the publisher was indirectly referring to them and so got The Guardian Post again suspended, for three months; just two weeks after it had resumed publication after the first sanction.

It makes meaning to recall that The Guardian Post’s second suspension which was announced on November 21, 2013 attracted a lot of cat calls because the media regulatory body had violated all the laid down rules and procedure regarding the suspension of media organs.

Firstly, The Guardian Post publisher was not tried before the sanction was meted out. Secondly, the NCC members who claimed The Guardian Post publisher had insulted them in the interview were not the ones who tabled the complaint at the council as the body’s internal rules demand. Thirdly, Article 39 of the NCC was violated because the two concerned members took part in the deliberations and the voting that sanctioned The Guardian Post. Lastly, the petition against The Guardian Post by some Yaounde-based journalists was hurriedly heard and judgment delivered (within less than 24 hours) whereas there were other complaints that had been lying unattended to; at the NCC for several years!

The good news about The Guardian Post five-month controversial suspension is however that the newspaper has surmounted all the man-made obstacles and stood the challenge as Cameroon’s lone English Language daily newspaper. It is now left for those who played a role in our five-month suspension to ask themselves if they did us good or evil!