Press Reembrace of Democracy

Abstract

The African press’s support for military rule was never wholesale or unconditional. For the most part, press support for military regimes had resulted from sycophancy and the dictates of ownership, as discussed earlier. Even in the bleakest periods of despotism, some journalists and news media took brave stands in calling for democracy or, at least, a liberalization of the polity. What is new in Africa’s current political dispensation is the dominance of independent newspapers, the introduction of independent broadcasting, and a keen awareness that even as a short-gap measure, military rule is politically regressive. The military emperor has been shown to have no clothes. These realities and the global trend of liberalization have coalesced to spur the African press to assert its freedom more stridently, to take a more concerted stand against dictatorship, and to crusade for a deepening of democracy.