The world is currently grappling with the issue of media financing and independence from owners and the individuals or entities that fund them. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, as in most African countries, mass media operate within an unstable socio-economic environment. Beyond the absence of license fees and public subsidies, Congolese media are weakened by, on the one hand, the low profitability of revenue from advertising, newspaper sales, subscriptions, and service contracts, and, on the other hand, by the relentless pursuit of prestige by some professionals, the lack of adequate training for many, and, above all, the influence of powerful financial interests. The precarious working conditions of Congolese journalists undermine the quality of their work and increase the tendency to disregard ethical principles. Congolese media outlets readily relay or follow the directives of their owners, advertisers, or funders. Submission to commercial imperatives and dependence on economic powers have profoundly shaped professional practices. Where a genuine counterweight was expected, suspicions of collusion have taken root. Qualitative analysis of data on media ownership structures in the DRC since the opening of the media landscape in 1990 reveals that the Congolese press is subject to the iron rule of the oligarchy. Public radio and television operate as political and ideological weapons designed to control and manipulate information, while private media outlets are dominated by local political, economic, and religious elites. These elites rely on these media outlets to promote and defend their own interests, to the detriment of democratic debate and the plurality of viewpoints on Congolese reality.
Media owners, whether public or private, as well as their financial backers, exert direct influence over the content broadcast. They fund news outlets to promote information favorable to their interests. This results in a form of complicit journalism born of funding. This collusion between financial power and the media is deplorable from the perspective of rigorous journalism, as it undermines the independence and impartiality of professionals and compromises their freedom to inform. It is therefore necessary to integrate the ethical approach proposed by Ralph Potter and to create platforms for journalistic criticism and review to guarantee media quality and transparency. It is also important to regulate, or even legislate, the financialization of the media and to provide public funding to the press in order to strengthen the independence of professionals from economic powers, and thus resolve the problems linked to political and economic determinism in the functioning of the media in the DRC. Positive state support for media outlets is a fundamental lever for guaranteeing freedom of information and for fighting against self-censorship and economic censorship.
