Senegal: One year into Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s presidency, RSF calls on the authorities to speed up reforms to improve the news economy
As Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye enters his second year in office, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the authorities to speed up reforms and prioritise projects to improve the media’s economic sustainability.
The authorities have initiated a number of positive reforms to the media sector in the past year of Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s presidency, including registering media outlets on a dedicated platform to promote greater transparency around public aid and within the media landscape, and updates to the law on advertising that strengthen its regulation.
The overriding challenge today is to guarantee the economic survival of Senegal’s media at a time when many outlets are facing increasing difficulties, such as the suspension of advertising contracts, the accumulation of unpaid bills and the general economic hits to the sector.
"Media registration and updating the law on advertising are welcome measures — the public has the right to know who is behind the outlets that provide general-interest information and a free and independent press must be protected from those who would like to buy influence. However, the question of the economic sustainability of the media needs to be addressed more effectively through broad consultation between the authorities and media professionals. As President Bassirou Diomaye Faye enters his second year in office, RSF calls on the authorities to continue taking swift, concrete action to prevent the collapse of a sector that is vital to Senegalese democracy."
Under the previous president, 60 journalists were arrested, assaulted, questioned or detained between 2021 and 2024. When President Bassirou Diomaye Faye came to power, he pledged to support a free press and a diversified media landscape. But the reforms undertaken during his first year have been criticised, especially due to the lack of consultation. The Council of Press Owners and Publishers of Senegal (CDEPS) denounced “an attempt to muzzle the press,” and organised a “press-free day” on 13 August 2024, a mass movement followed by almost all the country's newspapers and radio stations.
RSF recommendations
Given the major challenges that remain, which are mainly economic in nature, RSF has issued recommendations to ensure the sustainability of the Senegalese media.
Dialogue needed on tax charges
On 9 June 2024, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko declared that unpaid taxes by media companies could be treated as embezzlement. Since then, the waiver of tax debts owed by media companies, decided by former president Macky Sall, has been cancelled, several media outlets have been subject to tax reassessments, and others have had their bank accounts frozen. The situation worsened in the summer of 2024: at the end of July, Stades and Sunu Lamb, two of the country's most widely read sports dailies, suspended publication after more than twenty years, citing insurmountable economic difficulties.
Reform for better governance of public aid
Seeking to improve governance and the allocation of public aid to the press - currently estimated at 1.9 billion CFA francs (around 3 million EUR) - the authorities have launched a project to map the media that comply with the Press Code.
Launched in August 2024, the project was based on an initial process of registering press companies. However, of the 639 media outlets that submitted applications, only 258 were officially declared compliant by the government in February 2025, based on their administrative status, the required number of journalists and the existence of valid employment contracts. Subsequently, the mapping has destabilised some media outlets.
Mahamadou Baldé, founder of the news website Kolda News, recounted to RSF that it was “a collective decision [within his media outlet] to stop publishing at the end of February.” The reason? “Because we are unable to recruit three journalists with the required years of experience [under the Press Code],” he explained. Kolda News was set up in 2009 and published local news from the Kolda region in southern Senegal.
RSF recommendation: Strengthen the reform of press subsidies by helping the media to become more professional by
- supporting the work of the media review commission, in consultation with stakeholders such as the Council for the Respect of Ethics and the Press Card Commission;
- increasing the budget for public aid to the press, as announced;
- setting up a new regulatory authority, as announced, which includes a representative for media owners;
- promoting the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) certification, with tax incentives for participating outlets and their partners. Several Senegalese media have already been certified or are in the process.
The decline in income due to suspended advertising contracts
Some media were receiving public financial support through advertising, yet the new government has suspended these contracts. This has put many journalists in a precarious position, and some confirmed to RSF that they have salary arrears as a result of this drop in funding. And yet, according to Habibou Dia, Director of Communication at the Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Technologies, “the objective is to first identify the media companies that comply with the Press Code and are eligible for such support, in response to the issue of uncontrolled public spending under these agreements, which involved significant amounts committed without deliverables, governance frameworks, or adherence to the procedures governing contracts by public institutions and state bodies.”
RSF recommendation: Adopt a new advertising code adapted to the current situation
Safety issues
The first year of Bassirou Diomaye Faye's mandate has been marked by journalists confronting safety issues. While there has been a decline in violence, a number of summonses have raised concerns about respect for press freedom. On 11 February 2025, Pape Sané, a journalist and columnist with Walf TV, was questioned at length by the Brigade des affaires générales (BAG), which allegedly tried to identify his sources. In October 2024, Cheikh Yérim Seck, a journalist and political analyst, was taken into custody after criticising individuals presented by the prime minister during a programme on 7TV. In May 2024, the editors of the newspapers La Tribune and Le Quotidien were also summoned, then released, following articles about a senior army officer.
More recently, at the end of March 2025, an attempted attack on the premises of the private broadcaster TFM was thwarted thanks to the vigilance of security guards. A few days earlier, a minister and senior members of the President's party had called for a boycott of the television channel after a columnist made what he considered to be “inelegant” remarks about the prime minister and a member of parliament.
What’s more, new threats have emerged that are unprecedented in the Senegalese media landscape: a series of cyber attacks took place in February and March 2025. The news websites Seneweb and Dakaractu, followed by PressAfrik Group's YouTube channel, were targeted, prompting the authorities to issue a security alert on 28 March calling for stronger protection measures for digital platforms.
