Below is a release from the National Communication Council.

The Vice-President of the National Communication Council wishes to inform public opinion and media professionals that the security crisis our country is currently going through as a result of sporadic incursions by foreign groups in the Far North and East regions requires that media, in their threefold role of informing, educating and building social reliance, should throw their weight behind incontestable Republican values notably national unity and solidarity, as well as the protection of the nation’s territorial integrity.

This, without any prejudice, concerns the sacred principle of press freedom, a patriotic duty on the same level as that which justifies the sacrifice with their lives of some of our compatriots for the sake of the fatherland.

From the foregoing, the Vice-President of the National Communication Council draws the attention of media professionals to the recurrence of certain headlines in newspapers which, by relying on unproven allegations from certain foreign media or making usually unverified grave accusations and insinuations against citizens, publish content that is manifestly doubtful and offensive, and likely to contravene the smooth functioning of Republican institutions.

It is disturbing to note that some of our media houses have not yet found their feet and thus seem to depend on illusionary sources of information which is tantamount to their lack of professionalism. The Vice-president of the National Communication Council is thereby counseling and alerting media professionals of the role they have to play in the stability of this country.

By reiterating the pertinent provisions of the 24 September 1992 Decree rendering enforceable the Journalism Code of Ethics which states that it is forbidden for journalists to publish any information from a foreign source which violates national interest, the Vice-President of the National Communication Council calls on all promoters and professionals of public and private media to exercise responsibility in newsgathering, especially during these times marked by a security crisis where media, in a professional approach bringing together freedom and patriotic duty, must ensure the protection of Republican values which are required of all Cameroonian citizens.

The Vice-President of the NCC

(s) Peter ESSOKA