"A review of ten years of media pluralism in Africa" was the title of the third workshop at the pan-African management roundtable for newspaper executives held in Dakar, Senegal, in March. Marie-Soleil Frère, who is responsible for media projects at the Intergovernmental Agency of the Francophonie, conducted the discussion about factors that have influenced the African press in either a positive or negative way during the last ten years. The workshop identified six determining factors. Last week’s newsletter dealt with three of them. This week the following items are discussed: the collective organisation of the sector, the state subsidies to the press, the attitude of the readers.

1. The collective organisation of the sector In most African countries, the constraints on the press are so great that the only way of confronting them is collectively. Four sectors seem to be in particular need of overall solutions: the distribution of newspapers, the purchase of newsprint, the printing facilities and the training of human resources. In all countries represented at the workshop, there has been collective initiatives (often with external support), but all of them have ended in failure. Still today the typical picture is one of many small companies and organisations not cooperating and often doing the same work separately.

2. The state subsidies to the press Even though there were many different opinions about state subsidies among the countries represented in the workshop, all of them agreed on the following negative effects:
  strong dependence of the press on the state power
  multiplication of newspapers that publish only in order to receive the state subsidies
  embezzlement of funds in the interest of personal projects rather than the ones of the newspaper This shows that the whole idea of state subsidies should be reconsidered.

3. The attitude of the readers The situation changes a lot from one country to another, but in most countries it seems that there has been a considerable decrease in readership since the beginning of the 1990s. For example, the circulation of "Fraternit Matin" of the Ivory Coast has dropped from 70,000 to 20,000. The circulation of "Le Messager" of Cameroon has dropped from 120,000 to 10,000 in 11 years. The factors leading to this are the following, according to the newspaper directors present at the workshop: the loss of credibility, the economic crises, the stagnation of the democratic process, the competition from radio and TV, the multiplication of titles.