Haitian press face ‘existential crisis’ with no end to gang violence

Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s oldest independent daily newspaper, has been around for 126 years, and the outlet’s owners are proud to have maintained its operations through the country’s intensifying challenges — from foreign occupation and devastating earthquakes to coups.

But now Le Nouvelliste’s survival — and that of more independent media outlets in the country — may be in grave danger after gang rule has descended the island nation into virtual lawlessness following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.

Besides a handful of major TV, radio and print outlets, Haiti has hundreds of small radio and TV stations, many of them operating on social media platforms with tiny budgets and only a handful of mostly freelance reporters.

Many media outlets have been forced to cut staff due to falling advertising and others say they are close to being forced out of business.

Headquartered in Haiti’s capital, Port au-Prince, Le Nouvelliste has had “difficult situations” before, said publisher Max Chauvet, 73, the grandson of the paper’s founder. 

“But never like this,” Chauvet added. “It’s the first time in our history that the paper’s offices were physically taken over.” 

On April 25, suspected gang members occupied and looted Le Nouvelliste’s offices. The incident followed a March attack on a prominent broadcaster, Radio Télévision Caraïbes, which was forced to leave its studio in downtown Port-au-Prince. Also in April, the office of the National Press, which prints the Le Moniteur government bulletin, was attacked. 

And in March, the main gate and windows of Radio Télévision Caraïbes were hit by stray bullets. No casualties were reported. But the owner decided to move offices as a precaution. 

Gang members have spread all over the city since launching a coordinated offensive against the government in February, including an attack on two large prisons which resulted in the escape of more than 4,000 inmates. Several universities and hospitals, as well as the National Library of Haiti, have all been looted. 

After Le Nouvelliste’s offices were occupied in April, the paper was forced to stop printing. The paper remains online for its audience of 110,000 free subscribers, as well as its 528,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, and 590,000 followers on Facebook. 

Chauvet said he didn’t believe that the looting of Le Nouvelliste’s offices was in response to its reporting but rather a result of the “absence of the state.” That vacuum “has allowed looters to take advantage of the deterioration of security” across the city, he said. 

Chauvet told CPJ he was waiting for a full inventory of the items seized and destroyed but feared the paper may never recover. 

Attacks on journalists

The crisis facing media outlets in Haiti is the result of attacks by gangs on journalists and their offices, as well as the economic impact of widespread insecurity.

At least six Haitian journalists have been murdered in direct reprisal for their work since Moïse’s 2021 assassination. Haiti ranked as the world’s third-worst nation in CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index, which measures where killers of journalists are most likely to go unpunished. 

CPJ has also documented numerous kidnappings of journalists in recent months and attacks outside the capital, including Radio Antarctique in the town of Liancourt whose studio was burned down by gang members in 2023. Its director Roderson Elias left Haiti and the outlet has ceased operations.  

In recent years, several Le Nouvelliste journalists have been attacked. Prominent investigative journalist and editor Roberson Alphonse survived an assassination attempt in 2022 that left him hospitalized for eight days with gunshot wounds to the chest, stomach, and arms. He has since left the country. 

Alphonse was the second of the paper’s top reporters to be forced into exile, after the departure of Robenson Geffrard in 2022 due to death threats.

Advertising has dried up

The prolonged insecurity has also hit media owners hard financially as advertising from local businesses has dried up. Chauvet and other media owners worry how much longer they can keep operating, as they also grapple with competition from online news sources and social media influencers.

“There is no revenue to pay staff,” Chauvet said, adding that he had to lay off some staff and wasn’t sure how long the company could meet its payroll and stave off bankruptcy. “It’s an existential crisis.” 

Chauvet is considering the option of a paywall, but fears driving away low-income subscribers. 

“Countless media outlets have ceased broadcasting, reduced their airtime, dismissed staff, or are surviving hand to mouth,” Frantz Duval, editor of Le Nouvelliste, wrote in an April editorial marking the paper’s anniversary. 

“Insecurity has reduced economic activity, and this has had an impact on advertising, the only source of revenue for the vast majority of the press … The few media companies that receive subscriptions are seeing their customer base shrink daily. Families can’t afford to pay for information and entertainment. In all sectors, customers and employees are leaving, weakening the ecosystem.”

Sleeping on a mattress in the office

After 34 years in business, Radio Télé Galaxie, one of Haiti’s early FM band radio stations, has been on and off the air since April. 

“We are trying to stay active but mostly by doing social media,” director Jean Robert Jean-Bart told CPJ. Due to financial challenges, the station was forced to lay off 90% of its 50 staff. 

“It’s been 34 years of hard work and investment, but our savings have run out,” said Jean-Bart. 

One of his staff, Arnold Junior Pierre, was forced to flee his home in a gang-controlled neighborhood last August and has been sleeping on a mattress in the office ever since.

“I live in my workspace, which makes my situation very difficult. But I’m grateful to have somewhere to sleep,” Pierre told CPJ. “I continue to pursue my profession with passion. But we are all having to beg for survival. It’s a sad reality,” he said.

Chauvet told CPJ he worried that money from organized crime and drug traffickers could be used to influence media coverage. “In the absence of formal financial revenue, there is a lot of dirty money in the country which could find its way into the new online media,” he said.

Last month, a U.N.-backed contingent of 400 police officers from Kenya arrived in Haiti to help restore law and order and pave the way for new elections. But Chauvet worries it may be too late to save many local businesses. 

“If there is no economic recovery soon, it will be too late. What Haiti needs is a Marshall Plan,” said Chauvet, referring to the massive economic reconstruction effort in Europe after World War II.

In April, more than 90 Haitian journalists, backed by the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders, called on Haiti’s new transitional council to protect the media, saying that they live in constant fear of being attacked, kidnapped, or murdered.

“Doing our job has become so dangerous that a daily act of heroism is needed to keep going,” the appeal said.