2020 viewed by our media colleagues |31 December 2020
Journalists covering press conferences
‘A challenging yet interesting year’
2020 has been an eventful year, in which news was primarily dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the elections and again the Covid-19.
The population relied a lot on journalists to get new updates, breaking news and to clarify rumours. Journalists were forced to function in a new environment requiring them to cover live press conferences, conduct interviews via email, Zoom and other social media platforms to meet the needs of their audience. The diminishing income pushed some media houses to rethink their business model and adapt to the ‘new normal’. We have seen some of our colleagues going mainly digital and some using social media as their main dissemination method. To review the outgoing year, for once, we are handing over the platform to our colleagues across the various media houses to voice out their views.
Dave Barallon, Seychelles Weekly: « 2020 a été une année difficile pour nous, car nous avons vu une réduction dans nos abonnements après le changement de pouvoir. Généralement, nous avons noté que les gens cherchent leurs nouvelles en ligne et sur le réseau social. Pour la Covid-19 nous avons publié des articles pour informer/éduquer nos lecteurs et pendant les élections nous avons supporté pleinement le parti qui est au pouvoir actuellement. La vie est devenue difficile pour beaucoup d’entre nous et nous nous sommes appelés à faire plus de sacrifice. 2021 sera une année encore plus difficile, si la pandémie continue à évoluer. Les Seychellois doivent s’adapter à une nouvelle façon de vivre ».
Joanna Nicette, Freelance and The Independent: “2020 has presented the media with a lot of challenges as well as a lot of opportunities, especially for media here in Seychelles, as we are used to being a passive media. But this year, we were obliged to emerge from our shells and to really stand up to be counted among the rest of the population. It was not an easy feat for most people, but luckily, there were enough experienced journalists to guide some of the younger ones, and we saw that as a group, as the fourth pillar of society, we played our roles. Especially considering the Covid-19 situation, it exposed journalists with a different level of reporting. We have been exposed to live press conferences, on the basis that now everyone expects all press conferences to be live, without realising that this creates certain challenges for journalists, when the news has already been broadcast live and we still have to then put it in the format that our given media houses function by. Even those who work in broadcasting have to then find a way to make news out of something that has already been broadcast live. Print media is the same.
“But basically, it pushed us to see within ourselves our internal resources to be able to perform well, pass on the right information that is relevant to our population, and not just general information. If you listen to a press conference, a lot of information is given and our job is to from the chunk of information given, find the relevant and most pertinent matters, to then produce news that the public will understand. This has been reinforced with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Politics: This year we have not done too badly in terms of politics but I think we can always improve. We have seen the importance of having a balance when covering political actors, the different interests within the population as some people are not necessarily active but they have very specific opinions about interest groups. For instance some people are looking into what politicians are bringing to tackle drugs. Maybe we are not doing such in-depth work to see or question what the politicians are doing. They are all talking about tackling drugs but maybe we need to delve deeper into how they will do such. Basically, I think this is what we need to improve on, to push politicians to give us more concrete information, so when people are making a choice to vote, they are making an informed decision. But other than that, there has been more fraternity between us, but unfortunately we lost John (Lablache), but I think we pulled it together.”
Clive Camille, TéléSesel: “It has been a busy and exciting year, but one that was very stressful, as many projects which we had planned at Télésesel we had to put on hold, even some of the programmes we wanted to bring that we had to put on hold. At one point we had journalists and other employees who had to remain at home, as we didn’t want everyone working within the same environment, but all in all, with the limited resources that we have, we were able to pull together to at least inform the nation.
“We focused more on information, at one point, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, and then of course we had the elections, which again, we had to direct all our resources towards. So, some things we could not do as we had to change our plans, however, we maintained our mandate to inform people.
“According to my experience and information I received, reactions and feedback where many appreciate the way in which we were/ are able to bring another way of covering it. That is not to say that other media were not doing it, but we had a different way of doing it, each has their own way, so we were able to contribute this way. I received very good feedback with many people texting. We receive a lot of texts these days. It is the first time in my media career that I get to experience such an interaction with the public. Never has it happened before, whereby people are texting and saying to ask this or that. Many more people are more involved with the media in relation to national matters.
“As the New Year approaches, we have tried to organise a virtual party. It is a party but we have done it under strict guidance, as you will see on the 31st.We won’t be able to welcome in the New Year as we always do, we usually have big parties, and we can’t do it the same way, but we have done one version, even prior to the restriction. What you see on your TV is purely ‘TV magic’ to create a New Year atmosphere for the countdown.”
Melissa Payet, Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC): “This year has been exciting; it has been a new experience for many of us and I think it has been an experience for many journalists across the world, as it is the first time in 100 years that we are working during a pandemic. So, despite that it has been a difficult year, but it has also given us lots of experience, and at the same time, even though it was stressful, it has been fun especially when amassing the experience. We did encounter some difficulties such as long hours of work which we were not used to. We find ourselves waiting and on stand-by and having to wait a lot. Other than that, I can say it was a learning curve.”
Patsy Canaya, Freelance: “Two major events come to mind when we speak of media this year. Covid-19 and elections. Challenging yet interesting time as the public's attention turned towards the media to inform them on all the latest development. With Covid-19 I believe there was a renewed interest in our profession as people turned to journalists to seek more clarifications about a virus that was and is still scary and to date we're still learning about. I think media stepped up and delivered. This was also observed in the various live press conferences that took place before and during lockdown. I believe people respect us and our work.
“This was further enhanced during election time. One challenge covering an election during the ‘new normal’ ‒ you protect yourself, follow the measures, and above all ensure that information reaches the public by all means and that your independence and impartiality is not compromised. On a personal note, my biggest achievement this year was to have been part of the SBC team that organised the first presidential debate in Seychelles' history. I think it was a win for the profession and the media in general. Being part of the media association, a lot of our plans including more training could not take place because of Covid-19 but going into the new year, and with a new association I hope we can continue to push for more training, greater participation from our colleagues and ensure our profession gets the respect it deserves, we are after all the fourth pillar of democracy.”
Gervais Henrie, Le Seychellois Hebdo: “Despite being an exciting year for the country with a line-up of national events to cover mainly Seychelles' 250th anniversary since the first inhabitants landed on Ste Anne island, and the general elections, Le Seychellois Hebdo (LSH) took a backseat on news reporting and chose to do more online reporting. The decision allows the newspaper to report from anywhere with immediacy and targeting a specific audience. Although this new way of reporting has yielded zero return for the year, it has allowed us to generate data for future use in terms of product development and also developing a new target audience.”
Marie-Anne Lepathy, Seychelles NATION: “2020 got off to a slow start like any other year for the newspaper with very few news events to cover, but things normally start to pick up around mid-January which was the case. Unfortunately by the end of February with all the uncertainty being caused by the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide and the call locally for workplaces to adopt strict preventive measures, the management discussed how the paper was to continue its operation in case things got worse. Things did get worse with the confirmation of two positive Covid-19 cases on March 14. The newspaper had to reorganise its operations and divide its already very small team into smaller teams to reduce the number of people present physically at the office at one time. Some staff worked from home.
“It was really a very challenging time for us as many of our clients who advertise with us stayed away. Our income which entirely comes from advertisements dropped considerably. Up till now our financial situation is still unstable. All the same, the Seychelles NATION has remained true to its mandate of informing the people and we have proved this once again with the timely reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic, general elections, the 250th anniversary of the landing of the first inhabitants on Ste Anne island and a host of other events. We have proven that we can deliver despite working under difficult conditions.”
Rassin Vanier, Seychelles News Agency (SNA): « 2020 a remis en cause tous nos acquis comme être humain. Covid-19 a tout changé et nous a aidés à grandir comme une nation. Nous avons pris conscience que les choses dont nous y sommes habitués à vivre avec, peuvent changer d’une minute à l’autre. Au niveau des nouvelles, au sein de la SNA pendant la Covid-19 nous avons constamment informé nos lecteurs sur les risques qui nous guettent et comment se protéger. La couverture des élections était un peu difficile, car les informations n’étaient pas communiquées clairement aux journalistes. J’ai commencé un combat avec la Commission Electorale des Seychelles et maintenant je pense que nous allons avoir une meilleure communication ».
By the time of going to press, we were unable to receive the contribution from our colleagues from Today in Seychelles and The People.
We, the media people, try our best to bring you the truth but we also count on many of you – our readers ‒ to bring some colours in our articles/reportages. Seychelles NATION seizes this opportunity to thank all the media people out there who live to be the fourth pillar of our democracy and we thank our readers for always supporting us by reading and watching us.
We wish you a Happy New Year 2021 and we will see you on Monday January 4, 2021 with our first issue for the new year.
Vidya Gappy
