Mathias Victorien Ntep
Given Cameroon’s bilingual heritage, it is oftentimes expected that an average Cameroonian ought to be fluent in English and French, just as Bernard Fonlon felt comfortable in French and in English. In this guise, a typical Cameroon newspaper must not cater for only French-speaking or exclusively for English-speaking Cameroonian. An average paper ought to run news, commentaries, editorials and features in the country’s two official languages. However, in-depth examination of the newspapers in the country show that most of them are either French-language or English-language dailies, weeklies or monthlies. The most serious bilingual newspapers in Cameroon are the state-owned “Cameroon Tribune” and the independent and aspiring “The Entrepreneur”.
These two newspapers attempt to cater for all Cameroonians both in their content and outreach. When journalists from French-speaking countries gathered recently within the premises of Yaoundé's Convention Center, with the aim reviewing media challenges in the new technology age, the interaction was mostly with journalists in Francophone Cameroon. Clearly absent were media practitioners from Anglophone Cameroon. Few Cameroonian journalists in the gathering were comfortable in expressing themselves in public in both languages.
Attempts by the private-owned “The Entrepreneur” based in the Anglophone heartland of Buea and the state-owned “ Cameroon Tribune” bunkered in the nation’s capital of Yaoundé; to reach their audience in both languages, epitomize the spirit of Cameroon’s bilingual heritage pioneered and furthered by Professor Bernard Fonlon, a Cameroonian with Anglophone roots.
The identity of a people is made up of traits differentiating that group from others. Cameroon seems to miss and exploit this comparative advantage. The biggest losers are its media houses, especially the newspapers. While bilingualism is the fulcrum of Cameroon’s identity, it makes economic sense for a typical paper to attempt to reach a broader audience and market. Though shying away from hard-core political content, the Buea based The Entrepreneur’s niche on business and economics content leads the way as the most serious media outlet in the country that contributes to a meaningful agenda for economic progress on the premise that entrepreneurship is the best anti-poverty programme to be adopted by peoples of civilised modern states. Cameroon's single language Newspapers not only betray the country's bilingualism, but equally betray the people in fashioning out a nation building agenda. Political criticisms alone do not build nations.
as © The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2009. All Rights Reserved
Mathias Victorien Ntep is columnist and news analyst with the online and global edition of “The Entrepreneur”, Cameroon. He took courses in Mass Communications at the Yaounde I University, Cameroon, received courses in Journalism from the CNFDI of Brunoy, in Greater Paris, France, and a Postgraduate, Advanced and Higher Degree in Journalism, Media Studies and Mass Communications from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. He is currently a PhD researcher at the Goethe-University of Frankfurt ( Main), Germany, and at the Leiden University of Leiden, the Netherlands.
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