Julius Che Tita, Nengieh Lizzie Wantchami and Henry Muluh
This article seeks to understand the trend of press freedom in Cameroon base on African Media Barometer from 2008 – 2014. Journalism is effective when the press is free and press freedom in Cameroon has been criticised by journalism practitioners. Hence there is need to examine how press freedom has evolved over time especially with the coming of the new media. This article thus examines trends across issues like; freedom of expression, the Cameroon media landscape, broadcasting regulation as well as media practice. In order to achieve this, secondary data analysis was done. Data was collected from the African Media Barometer as from 2008 to 2014 and analysed. Findings revealed that freedom of expression has been in an increase as from 2008 (44.4%) to 2014 (73.5%). Results further show that the professional standards in terms of media practice is in a decline as from 2011 to 2014. Standard principles of reporting such as accuracy and fairness, integrity are not respected. Working conditions of journalists are generally very poor across the years. To conclude, Cameroon press freedom is in progress as from 2008 but there exist irresponsible journalism practices which therefore recommends in house media control from editor in chiefs’ and heads of newsroom.
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Journal of Mass Communication & Journalism received 205 citations as per Google Scholar report
