The main publication of the company Office national d’imprimerie et de presse is La Nation, a daily newspaper. Founded in 1969 as Daho-Express, then renamed Ehuzu (meaning “revolution” in Fon, a language spoken in Benin and a few neighboring countries), it adopted the current name in 1990.
Media assets
Publishing: La Nation
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
La Nation is published by Office national d’imprimerie et de presse, a state-owned publisher subordinate to the Ministry of Communication and Post, according to information from the ministry. The highest governing body at Office national d’imprimerie et de presse is its Board of Directors whose members, in majority (four out of six), represent state authorities (ministries).
Source of funding and budget
The publisher of La Nation, Office national d’imprimerie et de presse, doesn’t release financial information about its business performance. According to local journalists/experts, the company is funded through a combination of state subsidies and commercial revenues (mostly sales of newspaper copies and advertising). There is no publicly available information that would allow us to determine the share of state funding in the publisher’s total budget. Yet, the company is fully run by the state, which also controls the revenues generated by the newspaper.
Editorial independence
There are no editorial provisions obliging La Nation to cover government authorities in a certain way, yet, indirectly, through funding and control of the outlet’s management, the government fully controls the editorial line of the publication, according to local experts and journalists.
No statue and no oversight or assessment mechanism that would validate La Nation’s editorial independence have been identified during the latest round of research.
September 2023