"We respect the opinion of the President of the Republic, but our opinion, and looking at Angola's position today in the 'ranking' of Reporters Without Borders, we can conclude that there is no growth, there is stagnation and there is a setback", said the secretary-general of the Union of Angolan Journalists (SJA), Teixeira Cândido.
Speaking to Lusa, the secretary general of the SJA said that there is a setback in television stations, radio stations and newspapers whose main owner is the State and which are not available for plural debate.
According to Teixeira Cândido, the setback also affected the Vida TV and Camunda News channels, whose activities "were closed by the Ministry of Telecommunications, which assumed it had the powers to intervene within the scope of fundamental rights".
"We know, for example, ZAP, which removed all journalistic content and switched to entertainment, which reduced the space for debate", he highlighted.
He also pointed out the situation of TV Zimbo, currently owned by the State as part of the asset recovery process, noting that this body "is not as available today as it was for a plural debate".
Today "it is difficult to see dissenting voices, whether from civil society or the political sector, on TV Zimbo, which is the opposite of everything that has been done", he criticized.
The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, considered that Angolan journalism "is fulfilling its role" and that there is freedom of the press in the country, highlighting that private companies participate in this sector.
In a review of his two-day visit to the province of Huambo, last Friday and Saturday, João Lourenço, asked about interference in the work of journalists, pointed out that Angolan journalism "is growing and fulfilling its role".
Teixeira Cândido also pointed out what he considers to be the "absence of a policy to promote the growth of the press", despite the Press Law providing for an incentive law 30 years ago, he noted.
"What is certain is that there has never been a concrete measure from the State that aimed to encourage the emergence of media organizations. Today we have several privately owned bodies, such as radio stations, for example, with serious difficulties", he concluded.
The president of the board of governors of the Southern African Institute for Social Communication (MISA) for Angola, André Mussamo, disagreed with João Lourenço's statements.
According to André Mussamo, what grew in Angola was just "well-behaved journalism", repeating the expression used by the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, during his state visit to Angola, in August 2023.
"[We have to] tell the President of the Republic that we have really grown. We have grown in the implementation of a new way of doing journalism, which President Lula wisely named as 'well-behaved journalism', from this point of view we have grown," he said.
Because "of universal journalism, which is seen by many authors as the other name of democracy, in this one, we are already in the worst scenario", added the president of MISA Angola.
André Mussamo also criticized the "straitjacket" that is placed on journalists in Angola, every time the President of the Republic is available to speak, with textbook questions, which some, extraordinarily, have to ask".
