Mimi Mefo Newuh
Mimi Mefo Newuh is an award-winning Cameroonian-born journalist, currently working as an editor at Deutsche Welle, international broadcaster in Germany. She is also the founder and Editor-In-Chief of Mimi Mefo Info, (MMI). In 2019, Mimi completed five months as English PEN’s writer-in-residence.
Mimi started her career in 2010, spending the first nine years as a print and broadcast journalist in Cameroon. In April 2018, she became the first-ever female editor-in-chief of the English service of the private media house, Equinoxe TV and Radio, which she joined as a reporter in 2012.
Mimi founded MMI to provide Cameroonians and readers worldwide with up-to-date and objective information about the escalating violence and unrest in the country’s English-speaking regions. Since 2018, MMI has expanded its coverage to the rest of Cameroon where there exist a severe information poverty. Through its website and social media platforms it has been the main source of news for millions, as the crackdown on the media has intensified in Cameroon.
As a result of her relentless reporting, Mimi has been the target of online harassment, cyberattacks and physical surveillance. She was arrested and imprisoned in 2018 for reporting the killing of Wesco Trumann, an American missionary who was shot and killed in the North West region of Cameroon. Following four days of unprecedented local and international pressure, she was released and the charges against her were dropped.
Living in exile since 2019, Mimi is one of many journalists who have suffered State repression for doing their job. Despite all this Mimi and her team of journalists have remained steadfast to MMI’s founding creed to report the news with promptness and objectivity.
Mimi has won several awards including the 2019 Freedom of Expression Award by Index on Censorship in the Journalism Category London, UK; Female Journalist of the Year (2018); and Best Female TV Presenter (2018/2019). She remains committed to fighting for press freedom in Cameroon. Mimi believes that there are many journalists in Cameroon suffering from ‘mental imprisonment’ because of the fear and self-censorship. Her focus areas a politics, human rights, press freedom, conflict and gender issues.