2025 presidential, regional elections: Minister drums public media’s equal, objective coverage of candidates.

He gave the instructions in Yaounde Tuesday while opening the 2025 annual conference of heads of central, devolved and external services and state corporations under the supervision of the Ministry of Communication.

The event which warps up Wednesday, held under the theme: “Public communication service in the face of current electoral challenges”.

The opening was attended amongst others by the Director General of the Cameroon Radio Television, CRTV, Charles Ndongo; the General Manager of the Cameroon News and Publishing Cooperation, SOPECAM, Marie-Claire Nnana; and the Director General of the National Printing Press, Oyono Bika Pierre. 

Speaking while flagging off the exercise, the Minister Sadi emphasised the need for journalists and other media professionals to shun the spread of hate speech, misinformation and fake news during and after the forthcoming elections, to ensure peace and social cohesion.

Urges professionalism in coverage 

Minister Sadi emphasised the need for the public media to be exemplary in its coverage of all candidates in the forthcoming elections. He said the media’s success in providing the public with objective and equal news about all the candidates will be crucial in facilitating the smooth holding of the elections as highly desired by the population.

“Elections are very sensitive. The presidential election is not an easy task and the role of our media will be very important. It could be positive and it could also be negative,” Minister Sadi said, insisting that: “You should be objective and fair so that nobody will complain. That is the first obligation”.

He further tasked the institutions to not only limit themselves to pushing for equality and objectivity, but thrive to ensure that news about the various candidates get to every single Cameroonian no matter wherever they are located in the country. 

Conference perfect ground to bring actors up to speed

Minister Sadi also stated that he is confident the confab will be used to draw the attention of all the journalists of the public service and their leadership to their responsibility.

It for this reason that he said the themes such as the “coordination and monitoring of communication actions during pre-electoral, electoral, and post-electoral periods at central, devolved, and external levels” and the “production of electoral graphic material, a major step in the electoral process”, were purposely crafted.

Minister Rene Sadi said the confab will be used to evaluate the ministry’s readiness in “the production of graphic election material by State structures within the public communication sector, clarifying the legal and regulatory frameworks governing candidates’ and political parties’ access to public service media,managing electoral advertising and regulating media activities in collaboration with the National Communication Council”. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3567 of Wednesday September 17, 2025