Because the media have to reinvent themselves!

The press is under pressure, as a whole. No country or continent is immune to this situation, the causes of which are identified according to the direction of the wind. Social media are indexed and with these new means of communication, some were quick to announce the end of the print press, as with the appearance of Radio. As if to ward off bad luck, there was no such a premonitory disaster. The paper newspaper resists despite the upheavals and the fury of communication via these light beams called optical fibers.

The Ivory Coast merged into this crescendo-decrescendo movement with the spring of the press in the 1990s, marked by the proliferation of newspapers in the pay of political pharmacies. Opinions strongly crystallized from that moment on. A strong politicization of the phenomena which was really not worth the candle. Questions of public interest, the Republic, democracy … are variously interpreted or even ignored. Tribalism, embezzlement of public funds, the instrumentalization of religion for political ends are increasing. The press has unfortunately played an important role in this degeneration. Journalists become the Sofas of politicians with base designs.

Consciously or unconsciously, the press has fostered and maintained the social divide. Consequence: An armed rebellion, a war, stiffs, a political and social divide. A decline in democratic gains.

This page should be turned by a new generation of journalists with a clear and certain vision for the future of Cote d’Ivoire. But it does not appear tomorrow the day before the emergence of such a press which would have for only interest the well-being of the country and not that of the politicians, and no more! So let’s try to see the press with a unique ideal of informing, of training, of decrying – as a handful of pioneers already do – objectively without bias, with www.enquetemedia.net.

Without falling into self-celebration and all-out rave talk, we will simply say that the www.enquetemedia.net model, to borrow Geoffrey Livolsi’s word, is “halfway between the media and the NGO”. A nonprofit media that draws inspiration from ‘’ Disclose ’in France,’ ProPublica ’in the United States, du’ Bureau of Investigative Journalism ’in the United Kingdom and‘ ’CORRECT! V ’in Germany, four countries where philanthropic funding of journalistic projects is more common.

A non-profit investigative media

What is this non-profit press? Part of it is the opinion press (but which press isn’t an opinion press?). It is also – and perhaps above all – the associative press: associative, because it emanates from associations (all forms of voluntary associations of citizens and users) and / or because its mode of animation is associative, even cooperative. Lastly, and more generally, all the newspapers which, really or potentially, do not intend to make a profit, strictly speaking.

While definitions of investigative journalism vary among journalists, there is a general consensus around the characteristics that define it: it must be systematic, be the result of in-depth investigation, be the result of unpublished research and discovery, and reveal information that had hitherto remained confidential. The Flemish-Dutch investigative group “VVOJ” defines investigative journalism simply, as “in-depth and critical journalism”.

A textbook on investigative journalism published by UNESCO defines journalism as follows: “Investigative journalism involves exposing to the public matters which are deliberately concealed by a person in a position of power or accidentally concealed because they were drowned in a mass of facts and circumstances which obscured their comprehension. It requires using confidential or public sources and documents ”.

Alea jacta East! The die is cast, we will help ensure that they are never loaded again!

* Geoffrey Livolsi. Journalist / Co-founder of www.disclose.ngo, non-profit investigative media, France