Monrovia — Media executives, including publishers and radio and television station managers, have urged the Executive Mansion to stop advertising on its website.
They argue that this practice, which began during the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration, is negatively impacting their businesses. According to them, clients now prefer to advertise on the Executive Mansion website rather than with their media outlets.
The media executives insist that the Executive Mansion website should be used to disseminate information about the President and the government, not for commercial advertisements. They believe that advertising should be left to the media.
The call was made during a meeting with Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah and Presidential Press Secretary Kula Fofana. Mrs. Fofana noted that advertising on the Executive Mansion website is a practice inherited by the current administration. In response to previous complaints, her office has instructed institutions or organizations wanting to advertise on the website to show proof that they have also advertised in local dailies or radio stations.
Despite this measure, some media executives, led by Philibert Brown, expressed their frustration by walking out of the meeting. Minister Piah and Fofana, however, promised to continue engaging with the media to find an amicable solution to the situation.
They say this act undermines the economic gains of the media in Liberia, as advertisement serves as a major source of income for the daily operations and transactions of media outlets.
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"If the government continues to handle advertisements for companies and private organizations, whether free or paid, it will divert the attention and focus of investors from advertising with us. This deprives us of opportunities to access revenue from the advertising sector as a whole," they said.
They noted that the independence of the media in any society depends on self-sustainability, which can only be achieved through revenue generation from both the public and private sectors via legal transactions or advertisements.
Removing private sector advertisements from companies, organizations, NGOs, and other investors will not only hurt the Liberian media but also deprive the country of a viable fourth estate.
They further noted that the private sector, like the public sector, has an annual budget for media coverage and publicity, which the media must tap into through fair competitive business transactions in Liberia.
Self-sustainability of the media enhances its independence, enables timely and factual reporting of central government activities, and helps maintain balance in professional journalism.
The current situation, they added, prevents the news media from effectively fulfilling their normative role in society. It also perpetuates the erosion of professionalism among journalists and editorial independence of many newspapers, which are often unable to resist the influence of institutions seeking to manipulate the media.
