On 6 September 2008, Cameroon's Indomitable Lions beat Cape Verde 2-1 in Praia. The victory enables Cameroon to qualify to the next stage of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers. Cameroon's winning goal was scored by Somen Achoyi who came in as a substitute to earn his first national team cap in style. But by some miracle most foreign media reports said the goal was scored by Alain Nkong...?
The former captain of Canon of Yaounde, Alain Nkong, was not even part of the 21 players called to camp in Portugal ahead of this game. Neither was Nkong among the 18 players on the match list. He may have scored Cameroon's winning goal against Ghana at the semi-finals of the last Africa Cup of Nations, but he did not score against Cape Verde in Praia. Somen Achoyi did. He plays for Red Bulls Salzburg in Austria. He played for and captained Union Douala while he was still in Cameroon.
I thought I was hallucinating when two days after the game the likes of Supersport.co. za, MSN (in French) and BBC (including a picture of Nkong) still had this error on their sites. I felt like editing the copies. It's as if a Cameroonian newspaper reported that the two English goals scored by Joe Cole against Andorra, were scored by Michael Owen (not called-up by Fabio Cappello).
I suggest that this error came from the writer in one of the international news agencies. Knowing that Nkong regularly spots the number 12 jersey - this smart writer devised that if Cameroon's winner was scored by the player wearing shirt number twelve it should be Nkong Alain. How else could one explain that on a separate BBC story filed by Piers Edwards who interviewed Otto Pfister in Praia - the facts are accurate.
For Cameroonians who were able to watch the match live on the Benin based LC2 channel,the insipid first-half was made unbearable by the commentator not who not only referred to Albert Meyong Ze as Joel Epalle but managed to discover only after 25 minutes that a player wearing shirt number 18 (Binya) was on the field for Cameroon. He made a live appeal for anyone who could recognise that player to send him a text message or an email. He was brave enough to make excuses after half time. He seemed to have been corrected via mail by a Cameroonian supporter. As they say in French "ça arrive!"
Truly, one can only be best served by oneself!
Pity there was no live Cameroonian coverage of the game. CRTV and STV seem to be content fighting over the broadcast rights to the national team. Whichever gets the upper-hand, I pray that their commentators do thorough research before taking the microphone.
In the meantime, all the foreign experts who come from these reputable stations to run courses in journalism in Cameroon often repeat that the three rules to good journalism in the words of Joseph Pulitzer are: "Accuracy, accuracy and accuracy. " I suppose sport reporting on African issues is also journalism and so these rules apply.
Picture credit: Camfoot.com
Bravo, The Indomitable Lions!It is embrassing that somebody does a job and someone else gets the credit. Those foreign media houses who reported that the winning goal for the Lions was scored by Nkong and not Somen Achoyi, should immediately correct the error and even apologise to Somen Achoyi who is just beginning his career with the Indomitable Lions. I am sure Mr Achoyi did not take it lightly. Give to Caesar what is Caeser's.In journalism, one has to cross-check facts before publishing, i wonder what was at the back of the mind of the guy who published the story with inaccurate facts.Maybe because of the believe some people have been keeping in mind that "on ne change pas l'équipe qui gagne". This reporter might have got himself soaked up in this that he worked on assumption that if "on ne change pas l'équipe qui gagne" has been working in the Cameroonian world of football and there was a number 12 on the footbal pitch, that should be Nkong who has worn this in recent times.My dear Achoyi became a victimn of circumstances.
It is really a pity to know that CRTV or any other media house in Cameroon did not give live coverage to this match.The fighting of broadcast rights to the national team is a non issue to a country like Cameroon.The Media landscape has since witnessed a dramatic change . Let the gov't know that we are no longer living in the era of Crtv monopoly, let them give a chance to serious private media houses capable of delivering the goods.If STV is capable of broadcatsing matches live ,then let them be given the chance.One cannot compare one thing.Broadcast rights should be shared. Let the proprietor of STV and the state owned CRTV do some research with the German DAS ERSTE, ZDF and PREMIERE who broadcast matches. I believe they will get an idea on how to share the air time on match broadcast.Fighting over rights is archaic; Let me just seize this opportunity to say that We need Cameroon media houses on the satelite. CRTV, do that!
Posted by: Batimu | September 08, 2008 at 01:27 PM