Sierra Leone: The media and the fight against corruption

By Kemo Cham

Last October the role of the Sierra Leonean media in the fight against corruption was put to a test. One of the country’s telecommunication operators was found wanting for tax evasion. According to the National Revenue Authority (NRA), the company understated its tax returns, among other offenses.

Only a sizeable number of the media got wind of the story; journalists from about half a dozen media outlets invited by the taxman to cover an operation to shut down the offices of the telco. Agents representing the telco allegedly sought to bribe all the journalists to kill the story.

With the exception of the state owned Daily Mail and Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), no media outlet aired or published anything about the incident. All the other media houses reported to have sent journalists to cover it denied knowledge of it.

People familiar with the local media say this is an inherent phenomenon; businesses, politicians and other interest groups and individuals use money to influence reportage at the expense of public interest. This was the subject of discussion in a recent training on investigative reporting, one of several funded by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) as part of the government’s ‘Pay No Bribe’ (PNB) campaign. The UK-funded initiative aims to minimize small scale corruption which anti-graft experts say has a far reaching implication on the lives of the ordinary people.

The PNB was designed so that anyone can report any form of corruption or bribery experienced while seeking services in one of five sectors: health, education, security, energy and water. The goal, say ACC officials, is to ensure effective service delivery. The Commission intends to use the data generated to effect policy changes.

The PNB campaign was launched in September. And as of mid December, over 5000 reports had been lodged, according to figures on its website.

A number of interesting points were raised at the media training session held in the conference hall of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists in Freetown, indicating awareness on the issues hindering reportage on corruption. These issues range from media poverty, to the slipshod procedure involved in acquisition and ownership of media outlets.

Access to information and the unfavourable legislative environment were also identified by journalists as hindering their work thereby exposing them to the risk of jail terms or even death.

Counterproductive

The Sierra Leone media is one of the most pluralistic anywhere in the world. The rules governing acquisition of media licence is one of the least restrictive. Government and media rights activists say this is quite in place to safeguard freedom of the press and allow for divergent views.

Nevertheless, in many ways this system has proven counterproductive to free expression because it has allowed vested interests to infiltrate the media landscape. According to the Independent Media Commission (IMC), between 2002 and 2015 it has registered 162 newspapers. Of these only about 25 were daily and only about 15 of them were regularly published.

A major consequence of this overcrowding is a huge competition for funding in the form of advertisement. Government and corporate entities allocate advertorials to newspapers on the basis of who they think protects their interest. This way some section of the media has been used against the other.

Journalists use the pages of their papers to attack fellow journalists who dare publish ‘negative’ stories against such business, political and individual interests they protect. Some publications go the extreme of engaging in blackmail to get advertorials from businesses and individuals of questionable characters.

This congestion in the media landscape has set in motion a circle of poverty, so that just a handful of outlets are really able to sustain their publications. One effect of this is that very few reporters are in salaried jobs. Most are so poorly paid, or not paid at all, that they are susceptible to all forms of corruption.

Very few media outlets in Sierra Leone actually pay their reporters. The overwhelming majority only provide them with press cards, which is what they are expected to use to get themselves paid.

A great number of journalists have made it a routine to attend press conferences and launching ceremonies, taking advantage of the accompanying incentives like transportation refund. Some journalists negotiate the price for publication of the stories generated from such functions.

A director of a Freetown-based educational center who recently had firsthand experience in the hands of such journalists narrated his ordeal. They had hosted a launching ceremony for a new project and invited journalists from five leading media houses. Each of the reporters was given Le100, 000 as transportation. But the reporters openly protested what one of them described as an “insulting amount.”

An additional Le100, 000 had to be given to each of the reporters.

“If you do not pay, the story doesn’t get published and we are only interested in seeing our functions get publicized,” the director, who did not wish to be identified, told Politico.

From the outsider’s view, this may appear appalling, and rightly so. But the reality in newsrooms across Sierra Leone, say reporters, provides a convincing, even if not justifiable, explanation.

Samuel Kargbo worked for one of the leading newspapers in the country for four years and he was never on salary, even though he was hired as a staff. He says a piece of PR story for a politician or a businessman can earn him a whole month’s salary. He gets an on average Le150, 000 a month, depending on the number of stories he published within the period.

“When you write a PR story for a politician, they sometimes give you at least Le100, 000 or Le150, 000, depending on the nature of the story,” he says.

Kargbo narrates how he would approach a politician or a businessman and offer to write a ‘promotional story’ on their carrier or business for a negotiated fee. It pays higher when he comes across a story that makes for ‘bad press’ for the target, example allegation of corruption. Such stories he would either ignore or twist in favour of the accused.

Kargbo says sometimes they do not talk to the politicians concerned. They just go ahead to do a story by talking to various people who have good words for these politicians.

“I have a family to take care of…The media owners threat us as if we are not important. Because if you say we are important, you must pay us something we can appreciate,” he says.

Amadu Lamarana Bah, President of the Sierra Leone Reporters’ Union (SLRU), agrees. He says as a reporter, he had myself gone through the experience as have many of his colleagues in the executive of the SLRU.

“Journalists, even when they have stories on corruption to investigate, they are easily compromised and some others spend time on event based reporting instead of investigating stories,” he says. 

“We may not largely blame the reporters because publishers and media owners do not invest in investigative stories and they [journalists] mostly are not on salary and need to survive.”

There is hardly any Sierra Leonean journalist known for any specialized reporting. Few journalists have any grasp on the issues they report on. This leaves most of them at the mercy of the officials they are investigating, as they barely know the right questions to ask.

There is no doubt there are a few journalists who are true to the principles and ethics of the profession, regardless of their financial status. But for these, the culture of denial of access to information and the notorious criminal libel law have connived to provide persistent obstacle.

Even though Sierra Leone has passed an Access to Information law, journalists still find it difficult to access information from public officials. The reasons vary, but it all boils down to delay in responses to requests.

Some officials have complained that lack of knowledge on how to request for information has caused some of the delays.

Part Five of the Public Order Act which criminalises libel and imposes a jail term of up to three years has also served as an effective tool for rogue politicians and businesses to keep probing journalists at bay.

Sierra Leone’s libel law is unique in that the truth is not necessarily a defense. Many journalists say the best bet is to keep away from reporting something that is likely to cost them their freedom.