Sierra Leone’s media institutions, in recent times, are faced with several challenges that hinder their growth and development.

The challenges range from finances to keep media institutions up and running especially with payment of salaries, production costs and seeking the welfare of staff represent the growing setbacks in the media industry.

The advent of social media as an alternative source of information also worsens the situation with several media institutions reportedly being forced out of the news industry.

To change the narrative, UBA (United Bank for Africa), has been supporting print and electronic media institutions (newspapers, radio and TV stations) by way of speeding up early payment of ads to media outlets and  signing up sponsorship deals; and the thanks go to UBA’s Public Relations Unit.

In recent times, UBA doles out the largest number of adverts to several media institutions and ensures that it pays upfront for them, a move that boosts financial capacities of several media institutions in Sierra Leone.

The ads run for several months with no arrears owed to any media institution.

With such huge support to media institutions, proprietors are helped to take care of media production costs.

Most newspapers which have almost gone out of publication have re-surfaced on the newsstands with great vigor.

With UBA’s support, the new-life papers are coming out than never before. It is also the same with radio and TV stations which have got a fair share of UBA’s ads in recent times.

Helping to sustain media institutions in Sierra Leone, a media tutor has said, is a way of creating jobs for thousands of mass communication graduates, every year, from various universities across the country.

For example, the University of Sierra Leone (Fourah Bay College, University of Makeni and Njala University, Limkokwing University, Canadian University, LICCSAL Business College, CIBMAT college, and most tech-voc institutions are running up media, communication and journalism departments that are producing hundreds of communicators and journalists.

Private news media institutions are complementing government’s effort by offering graduates employment opportunities.

UBA is supporting several media institutions to sustain their news business and several graduates have taken up jobs as reporters, sub-editors, editors, producers and radio station managers and news coordinators in these print and electronic media across the country.

Mass Communication students from Fourah Bay College have been doing their internships as part of their academic fulfillment in several media institutions to which UBA gives a larger share of funds paid as adverts.

UBA often intervenes to assist in several situations that are outside the financial capacity of media institutions.

When a storm shut down Radio Hope FM in Makeni city in the North of Sierra Leone few months ago, UBA put back the radio on air by recouping the radio’s damaged equipment.

The proprietor of the Radio station remains thankful to UBA whose intervention created a difference for them.

UBA’s support to media institutions does not stop there as the bank often sponsors annual events held by SLAJ (Sierra Leone Association of Journalists), the umbrella body of all media practitioners in the country.

For example, UBA sponsors the Annual General Meeting which is held every year by the journalists’ parent body.

The event is one of the most important occasions for journalists all over the country who’ll converge to discuss issues pertinent to the media’s growth and development as well journalists’ welfare.

It is usually a big occasion as media practitioners are brought together under the same roof, but which is costing the organization huge sums of money.

It is also during SLAJ’s annual AGM that executive officials are elected, and sometimes journalists spend days on media deliberations.

The AGM is a financially demanding event as hotels have to be rented and other issues have to be attended to.

In such a situation, the executive often reaches out to corporate entities for financial support and UBA, in this regard, has declared its relevance to the umbrella body by footing a big chunk of its bills.

Hardly an AGM passes off with UBA not contributing millions of Leones to make such an occasion a great success.

The continental bank also provides support for SLAJ affiliated bodies such as Women in the Media Sierra Leone (WIMSAL), Sports Writers’ Association of Sierra Leone (SWASAL) and the recently formed Sierra Leone Association of Women in Journalism (SLAWIJ) among others.

Despite the economic crunch, UBA still shows support for the media and other sectors of the economy.

With UBA, a brighter future awaits media institutions especially in a country which is affected by media poverty.