Thank you Fatou Touray for your clarity, dedication and courage!

By Madi Jobarteh

Your statement reminds me one of the most exemplary pioneers and practitioners of journalism, the immortal American journalist Joseph Pulitzer.

In 1909 his newspaper, The World exposed a fraudulent payment of $40 million by the United States to the French Panama Canal Company. Immediately the US federal government indicted Pulitzer for criminally libeling the President Theodore Roosevelt. Following the trial, the courts eventually dismissed the indictments. In reaction to his acquittal, Mr. Pulitzer had this to same among other things about the nature and purpose of journalism in society,

“Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.”

In this quote, Mr. Pulitzer has raised all the issues that confront us and above all defines the very purpose of the journalist and the media in society.

That is, society must have a government that is democratic, accountable, and responsive to the welfare of society.

It is not only the role of journalists to expose and combat abuse of power and corruption, but this is not possible until and unless there is freedom of the media with journalists who are passionate about and dedicated to upholding the truth.

This means the journalist is an activist, a freedom fighter, an advocate, and a defender of the public interest who contributes to strengthening democracy. It is journalists like you who will salvage our motherland!