A Study on How Some Newspapers Sustain the Challenging Private Press Milieu in Ethiopia: Reporter and Addis Admas in Focus
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Date
2015-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The history of the press in Ethiopia goes as far back as the second half of the 19th
century. In spite of its long history, the press is still in its infancy materially,
professionally and economically. Other than serving the public interest, the press has
been muzzled by successive governments to serve their interests. Even at times when
the grips of the state have become moderate, the majority of the private press in its
earlier days opted to serve political interests whose ramifications sustain to this day
creating a polarized press environment. The polarization of the private press in turn
has resulted in many negative consequences which culminate in jeopardizing its very
existence. As a result, in the last couple of decades, the private media market in
Ethiopia has seen the coming and going of hundreds of private newspapers where
only a handful of them have sustained over a decade. This research had the objective
of investigating and explaining factors responsible for the survival of those few
newspapers focusing on Reporter and Addis Admas thereby implicating how and
why the others vanished from the market. In order to address its objectives, the
research has been generally informed by the Political Economy Theory. Among the
models that can be included in the theory, Polarized Pluralist Model and the Political
Economy of the Mass Media, Propaganda Model, have been selected.
Triangulation of data in the realm of qualitative research method employing in-depth
interview and document analysis has been employed. Thirteen key informants
representing the surviving and defunct newspapers, media associations, media
researchers and/or scholars and a government representative have been purposely selected. In addition, convemence sampling has been used to analyze available
documents.
The findings of this research have revealed two things. Firstly, they have ascertained
previous research findings about the existence of multiple challenges that have kept
the private sector fragile and prone to extinction. Secondly and mainly, despite the
existence of a myriad of challenges in the sector, factors that have helped the
survival of Reporter and Addis Admas have been uncovered. These are
professionalism, discharging roles and responsibilities, maintaining independence,
getting access to ads and decreasing the likelihood of charges by maneuvering
responsibly and defending the unavoidable ones likewise.
The findings imply that in order to survive the challenging private press situation in
Ethiopia, the press needs to work in a professional and responsible manner avoiding
confrontational approach with the government. This does not mean that the press
should not be critical to the governn1ent; rather, it should present its criticisms
constructively but not in a hostile intent as it has been proven counterproductive.
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Some Newspapers Sustain, Challenging Private, Reporter and Addis Admas