Private Written Press in Ivory Coast: From Hope to Excesses

With the "boom" in the private print media in the 1990s, it was thought that Côte d'Ivoire had given itself the means to develop its nascent democracy through the return of a multi-party system. Unfortunately, more than three decades later, Ivorians are still looking for a credible, independent and responsible private print media. In other words, they paint a gloomy picture in which journalists and private print media owners don't get a good press. But privately-owned newspapers carry the seeds of their own destruction and those of the peril of the Ivorian nation. What good is a newspaper if it has no readers? This question begs another. Created to consolidate and accompany democracy in our country, privately-owned newspapers today represent a serious threat to the very survival of democracy.