On the occasion of the World Press Day, it seems relevant to review the conditions under which journalists work in certain newsrooms in Mali: without a contract, without a salary … Some journalists live only by the name of the newspaper. Here is an article written in 2014. It contains reflections that I wish to share.
This may be shocking – nevertheless! – to say that it is climbing the tree of naivety to hope to live the profession of journalist. Especially in a country where reading has already been its number one enemy that is fought with the same fury that sued Osama bin Laden or Muammar Gaddafi.
Besides, in the gossip between students, we like to tease ourselves by saying that « if you want to hide a precious thing from the Malian, put it in the book! ». A joke that always provokes a burst of laughter, because it sticks very well to reality and allows anyone to realize the reasons for the intellectual drought that has settled in the country and which is spreading like a leprosy.
In such a situation, it is easy to guess that for the journalist, life is really not salt or rest. A few days ago, I was reading « L’oeil du reporter » (*) where the columnist Françoise Wasservogel tried to paint the picture of youth employment. There is a dark picture of it, for it presents a youth struggling with social injustice, nepotism, precariousness.
Yet « Article 19 of the 25 February 1992 Constitution guarantees equal access to employment for citizens ».
As a result, « disappointment is a national sport »; The young people who were happy to have graduated, their families and the society that saw them grow, have reaped only disappointment because of the obstinacy of the ruling class to descend even more into the well of corruption, nepotism, favoritism and what else do I know.
To this enough eloquent finding on the distress to which a whole youth is a prey, it must be added that a considerable number of young people succeed in finishing university with a diploma. The profession of journalist has become a unique resort. For the most part, it is embraced without any conviction by having in mind this saying:
« When you do not have what you like, you take what you have ».
By saying this, I am well aware that I’m rubbing salt in the wound, but the fact is that the majority of these young journalists known as « reporters » do not honor this profession; They also deserve to be accused. On one hand, there are some who, although working in a weekly newspaper, exhaust themselves to cover three to four events in a single day. Most often without being invited, the most important thing for them being to pocket … On the other hand, we have those who during coffee breaks, rush to the tables covered with drinks. They are called: predators for the former, the followers of « food journalism » for the latter.
I will be told by the way that this is the only way to get out of the game, given that in the vast majority of newsrooms, except for two or three journalists who are paid, all the others live on the basis of the newspaper « name ». And it is perhaps the only reason that could tear a salute from the modest chronicler that I am for my young colleagues who believe so hard that the best will come, that they will sooner or later take the road to success.
But the road to success is not short. How many journalists are today in the dawn of their careers, struggling in the spider web of anxiety (for the future)? How many are strangled in tunnels of fear? They are numerous and without getting tired, continue to receive lessons from the publishing director about the virtues of patience. Patience! Patience! That is what messes my head too and that is why I became furious when my friend, Boubacar Yalkoué, informed me that he had just resigned from his position as editor-in-chief at La Nouvelle Patrie, and that before letting him go, his director told him:
« All I advise you, is be patient in life! ».
“Yes, it is true that «good things come to those who wait », but when one is surpassed in patience it is best to retreat, it will allow a better jump. And that is what Boubacar did when he resigned. « I could no longer hold, morally above all! », he told me last Friday. No stomach, say the Austrians, is satisfied with fine words. And the biggest mistake of most « dirpub » (publication director) is to constantly demand that these young journalists continue to supply papers over and over again without giving them a nice gesture!
We can fill all the pages of all the country’s newspapers to express the disappointment that I share with many colleagues, young, with a higher diploma, but that would serve no purpose. Especially for me as well as for them, this job has become a passion. And finally, I would like to quote from a friend, journalist and essayist, Akram Belkaïd:
« I chose to do journalism, that was it or work. »
(*) Bonjour, ça va ? Oui, ça va, et toi ? ça va…à la malienne!, Le Reporter du 14 mai
Boubacar Sangaré