The Chair of the National Communication Council led a team to the South West Region.

Media men and women of the South West Region have been edified on the changes in the status, missions and issues of professional ethics bestowed on the National Communication Council (NCC).

The acquaintance was made in Buea, June 19, 2013 when the Chairman of NCC, Mgr Joseph Befe Ateba, accompanied by other Council members including Peter Esoka (Vice Chair), Jean Tobie Hond (Secretary General), and Charly Ndi Chia (host member), conducted a press conference at the Chariot Hall.

Mgr Befe Ateba told the media men that the Council, created in June 1991 and subsequently reorganised in January 2012 through Presidential decrees, is responsible for ensuring the promotion of press freedom and the viability of media organs including the protection of peace and good social order in the media.

Coming a long way, the 22-year-old NCC was reorganised recently with its status raised from the 1991 simple advisory body placed under the Prime Minister, Head of Government, to the 2013 regulatory and consultative body with legal personality and financial autonomy. Expounding on the issues, Mgr Befe Ateba clarified that some 60 complaints of violation of professional ethics have been reviewed within the last three months, though resulting for some in sanctions, but with “priority given to the pedagogic and consultation approach.”

The press conference in Buea referred Journalists to the declaration of the International Federation of Journalism adopted at their Istanbul Congress in 1972 summarised in six core elements as respect for truth, culture of honesty, truthfulness in criticism, inevitable use of information sources, non-discrimination in handling information and refusal of any gratuity for publication or deletion of information.

On the protection of Journalists at work, Mgr Befe Ateba replied that the Council could act like press freedom fighter and rejoiced that the Secretary of the Council is a legal expert. On the training of Journalists, he concluded; “Do not come in if you do not have the necessary academic reference. We will not admit butchers for surgeons,” he admonished. On the publication of election results, he said the media is not a substitute of the Constitutional Council. On the Journalism charter, he said it will be published soon.

The NCC Chair told the array that their mission to Buea, as a lap to all the 10 Regional headquarters, was a continuation of an awareness campaign begun with the Yaounde seminar, 13-15 September, 2012, on the theme: “Stakes and challenges in the regulation of the Communication sector in Cameroon”. The Buea conference came a day after a previous one in the neighbouring Littoral capital, Douala.