SILVER LININGFragmented media ventures [Archives:2007/1106/Opinion]

Mohammed Al-Qadhi
Several new weekly newspapers have started operating this year. It is good that there are ambitious colleagues who would like to have their own projects. Some of these newspapers are now doing well. They are readable. However, when I have discussed with them the commercial aspect of the project and if their newspapers will be able to sustain in the absence of a professionalized advertising market, the answers have been discouraging. This has raised my concerns about the sustainability of such ambitious ventures. I understand some of these newspapers are painfully managing to survive. However, this is not the goal. The objective should not be limited to survival only where many journalists working in these newspapers feel unrewarded and some even quit to the thought of initiating their own small enterprises. Every time I meet some of my colleagues, I find them haunted with the idea of starting their own newspaper. I have been myself thinking about this idea. The overall objective of any of such project should be more ambitious to grow further and attain success and wide circulation. I mean, the people want to see their newspapers making constant progress and success.

This zeal of motivated young journalists to have their own media outlets is the outcome of a number of reasons. First, the reluctance of the business community in investing in this sector has pushed these journalists to make their own initiatives. I have written several times that it is crucial the business community starts investing in media for they are able to set up strong media outlets that can work professionally and sustain. However, the business community in Yemen is very much afraid of the political regime for the people in charge still believe the role of independent media is mischief. They do not perceive its crucial role in booting democracy and development at large.

Second, the frustration of these journalists with their employers either the political parties or owners of private newspapers is another reason behind such fragmented personal media endeavors. Most of these employers also hold a wrong view of the media and task of the journalist. Some employers take advantage of their journalists need and do not pay them well. Some journalists feel no appreciation for their brilliant work while others find that the owners of these newspapers are not able to give them a free space to operate, let alone the absence of institutionalized professional management that gives the journalists in running these media outlets and give them a hope in a better future. Journalists need to feel secure about their future in these newspapers.

I understand such small enterprises serve the interests of the information ministry and the government at large to maintain a fragile media that is not able to influence the public and thus produce any change in the society. The ministry of information might find the fragmentation of the journalistic energies and nerves achieve its objective in having weak newspapers whose main concern is how to survive. This is not, of course, a call for the ministry to stop granting new licenses. It is rather a call for my colleagues to join hands and work together. Such small enterprises might serve individual interests on a short-term scale. Nevertheless, only strong professional and institutionalized media can achieve the aspirations of everybody. I guess it is possible that many of these independent weeklies can merge in a few strong independent and institutionalized daily or weekly newspapers that can make use of all these fragile and dispersed efforts.

To drive the point home, this pile of new newspapers demonstrating individual ventures does not help promote a strong professional press. We need to have institutionalized business-oriented media so that it can grow, sustain and pay off. When these media outlets are financially autonomous, they can operate professionally and be the voice of the voiceless. Media is a crucial instrument of democratization and therefore, the stronger it is, the greater the democratic drive is.

Mohammed Al-Qadhi ([email protected]) is a Yemeni journalist and columnist.
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