Africa-Press – Senegal. Des acteurs des médias et personnalités publiques, réagissant au décès de Mame Less Camara, des suites d’une maladie, ont salué la mémoire d’un « journaliste emblématique » et d’une figure majeure de la presse sénégalaise dont la bonne réputation dépassait le monde des médias.
Mame Less Camara est un ancien de la Radiotélévision sénégalaise (RTS, publique) où il a entamé sa carrière au début des années 1980 et exercé pendant de longues années avant de diriger les rédactions de plusieurs médias privés tels que Walfadjri, Envi FM, Océan FM. Il a aussi lancé chaîne de télévision DTV, FEM FM puis dernièrement la Télévision futurs médias (TFM).
The deceased, a trainer at Cesti, the school of journalism at the University of Dakar, was also a correspondent for the BBC, the British public media.
Mame Less also headed the Syndicate of Information and Communication Professionals of Senegal (Synpics) in the 1990s.
He was unanimous for his high professional skills and his keen sense of ethics, qualities that made him a reference in the media sector in Senegal.
In their reactions, especially through social networks, many colleagues of the deceased journalists are full of praise for this icon of the national press.
Journalist Mamadou Koumé, former Director General of the Senegalese Press Agency and Honorary President of the National Sports Press Association (ANPS), paid tribute to « an excellent teacher who has marked the journalism students who held a great admiration ».
“Despite his health concerns, Less always organized himself to dispense his teaching. He was an excellent trainer, a great professional and a positive man in everyday life,” Mr. Koumé said.
Alassane Samba Diop, managing director of the Emedia group, hailed “an integral journalist, a philosopher, a fine analyst, a man of a big heart with a generosity pegged to the body”. « Less was a lord in the fullness of words, » he added about the deceased who was one of his trainers at Cesti, the school of journalism at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar (UCAD).
Ballé Preira, who made his debut at Walf FM with Mame Less Camara as manager in the late 1990s, remembers him as a “brilliant professional”.
“I cannot describe the pleasure I had listening to him on journalism and politics (…). His face-to-face broadcast on RTS [Public Radio] was a high art of journalistic interviewing,” recalled Mr. Preira, who now heads the communication department of the Ministry of Finance and Budget.
Journalist Serigne Adama Boye, former editor-in-chief of the APS, for his part hailed the memory of a “friendly elder (…) with a rare voice and spirit”.
Eveline Fakir, former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Chad and Vice-President of the High Authority for Audiovisual Media, mourns a “second father and a manager of the radio laboratory at CESTI”, where she trained as a journalist.
Several other colleagues insisted on the human qualities of the deceased. “Mame Less Camara had bookish and professional qualities. The Senegalese press will be so orphaned of its ethics, its humility and its wisdom,” writes Mor Talla Gaye, journalist with the group Futurs Médias.
“What a terrible loss. Less was simply good”, reacted the general administrator of the Maison de la presse Babacar Touré, Bara Ndiaye.
The former director of the private radio station Sud FM, Oumar Diouf Fall, insisted on the humility and generosity of his colleague. « Mame Less Camara was a brilliant journalist with a rare talent (…) in addition to a pronounced sense of humor, a useful humor », he underlined.
“I was able to appreciate his exceptional qualities during the five years that we spent together at CORED (Council for the observation of the rules of ethics and professional conduct), the court of peers. He was deeply attached to the respect by journalists of the basic rules of our profession”, testified Cheikh Tidiane Fall, former journalist for the daily newspaper Le Soleil (public).
The journalist Sidy Diop, speaks of Mame Less Camara as an « inspiring journalist, a generous intellectual, an endearing man and a master recognized by several generations of journalists ».
Former Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio hailed the memory of a journalist who was « uncompromising » with economic and political power.
Finally, the former general secretary of SYNPICS, Diatou Cissé, believes that Mame Less Camara was “a perfect model of integrity (…) who was very detached from things and worldliness”.
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