10 September 2003
Lisbon — The Portuguese government on Wednesday pledged "total willingness" to step up its support for the mass media in the Portuguese speaking African countries (Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe).
Domingos Jeronimo, Secretary of State in the Portuguese Cabinet Office, made this promise at the opening of a meeting of experts, that precedes a conference of the ministers in charge of the mass media in Portugal and its former colonies due to be held on Thursday.
But Jeronimo said the current model of cooperation in this area should be revised. The new model should rest on staff training, the sharing of media content, and the development of co-productions.
He said that the current form of cooperation had been directed particularly to the mobilisation of funds, and this had "not always been effective".
Jeronimo laid a heavy stress on RDP-Africa and RTP-Africa, the Portuguese state radio and television channels directed at an African audience. He regarded these channels as the "priority instruments for the diversity of the various states", and boasted that "potentially they cover more than 200 million speakers of Portuguese".
In fact, most of these 200 million people live in Brazil and are most unlikely to tune into Portuguese channels aimed at Africa. Jeronimo also makes the mistake of assuming that people living in former Portuguese colonies speak Portuguese. In fact, the 1997 census showed that the great majority of Mozambicans speak no Portuguese at all, making it a nonsense to describe the country as "Lusophone", other than in the narrow, official sense.
"We must bet on these channels to and for the Lusophone world", Jeronimo declared. But, despite their names, in fact there is very little specifically African about them. RTP-Africa is full of Portuguese football matches, the Portuguese news, Portuguese soap operas, and third rate Portuguese game shows (including Portuguese versions of such British TV games as "Who wants to be a Millionaire ?", and "The Weakest Link"). There is no way that a Mozambican or Angolan audience will identify with such programming.
The meeting of experts, the rest of which is taking place behind closed doors, is supposed to define guidelines for future cooperation in the media field, which will then be put before the ministers.
Since Mozambique abolished its Ministry of Information a decade ago, no Mozambican minister will be attending Thursday's meeting. Instead the Mozambican delegation will be led by the director of the government press office, Felisberto Tinga.
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