Preparing For Another Leap Forward

The economic supplement, Alter-Eco will cease to exist but SOPECAM has better plans.  

As part of efforts to introduce a complete mutation that meets public expectations and the market ambitions of the company, the Cameroon News and Publishing Corporation, SOPECAM, intends to transform the bi-monthly economic pullout, Alter Eco, into another product that would soon be discovered. Obviously the surprise is intended to be rich, dense and more specialised. In 142 issues, Cameroon Tribune has sought to read meaning into the various economic activities that continue to mark the evolution of the country.  

Of course, those who follow national developments do recall that the Head of State announced in one of his investiture speeches that Cameroon has to be transformed into a vast work site. Literarily, this certainly meant focusing to the economy so that the population should be able to witness positive changes in their living conditions. Cameroon Tribune could not capture such a vision any better than keep a closer eye on the current economic happenings.

In most cases, the primary concern of journalists which is to inform, educate and entertain, is hardly given adequate focus, especially in a daily newspaper like Cameroon Tribune. In order not to always limit the scope of events to certain peripheral issues that some societal actors want to impose on the public, the newspaper management taught it wise to go beyond topical questions. This is to give the growing readership of the bilingual daily another perspective to the multiplicity of economic events that keep official, mega economic operators, medium-size enterprises, petty traders and market women commonly called “bayam-sellams” or hawkers, an opportunity to make their business ventures visible.

For close to six years, Alter-Eco therefore delved into the activities of some enterprises, bringing out through data, charts and other infographic representations the aspects that permit the reader to see beyond the face value of economic progress in Cameroon. Yet, that vision has not proven to be far-reaching enough, given the increasing concerns by the public to know more about the natio...