Sidwaya is a media operation run by the government of Burkina Faso that consists of several print publications and the Burkina Agency of Information (AIB), the country’s flagship news agency. Sidwaya is the most popular newspaper in Burkina Faso.
Media assets
Publishing: Sidwaya, Carrefour Africain, Sidwaya Sport
News agency: Agence d’information du Burkina (AIB)
State Media Matrix Typology: Independent State-Funded and State-Managed (ISFM)
Ownership and governance
Siwaya is a media company subordinated to the Ministry of Communication and Relations with Parliament, which has control over the appointment of the company’s top echelons.
Source of funding and budget
There is no publicly available financial data about Sidwaya’s performance. According to local journalists and experts, the company relies on contributions from state subsidies to operate.
Editorial independence
There are no formal editorial rules forcing the media outlets run by Sidwaya to give favorable coverage to authorities. Although the authorities exert some influence in Sidwaya, since 2013 there have been no reports of incidents that would prove editorial control by the government of Sidwaya’s media outlets. Moreover, an ad hoc analysis carried out for this report didn’t find indications of a strong pro-governmental line in the outlets run by Sidwaya. Sidwaya daily, the flagship publication of the group, is a tabloid newspaper focused on sensationalistic content and human interest stories.
No domestic statute and no oversight or assessment mechanism in place at Sidwaya to validate the editorial independence of its media outlets have been identified.
September 2023