STATE OF THE MEDIA REPORT 2017

For media agencies in Sierra Leone, 2017 was indeed a bumper year. There was no
shortage of newsworthy events. Pseudo events also were galore, with fake news
blazing the media horizon like the evening sun.
Among the journalistic cadre, we noticed that there were quite a number of muted
voices, muffled drums, spin doctors, radicals, collaborators, and pretenders, all
claiming to serve the journalism profession and, above all, the country in the best
democratic tradition.
It makes one wonder if there is really an animal called “the neutral” or “objective”
journalist. Nontheless, we have managed to survive another year of political
turbulence, and our report card is amazingly flattering – as professionals, we are
somewhat better off now than we have been since political independence in 1961,
although we are yet to reach the bench mark of professionalism that the Media Reform
Coordinating Group of Sierra Leone (MRCGSL) has set for media practitioners in the
country.