How Africa fares on the Press Freedom Index 2021
Africa has uneven results in the recent Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index
By Chris Roper
The breakdown of trust between media and their audiences is perhaps the fundamental crisis of our time for journalism. It permeates everything, from the struggle for sustainability to the onslaught on press freedom by governments, corrupt business and drive-by trolls. Two of the barometers for this are the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) annual World Press Freedom Index, which measures the state of media freedom in 180 countries, and the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, which looks at levels of trust in business, governments, NGOs and media.
There is a mixed bag of results for Africa in the 2021 edition of the RSF report.
On the plus side, some of the index’s biggest gains are African nations. Sierra Leone moved up 10 places to 75 on the list, after the repeal of a criminal libel law that stifled free speech.
Mali rose nine places to 99, by cutting down on the number of abuses perpetrated against journalists. Burundi moved up 13 places to 147, with their most notable change being the presidential pardons and release from jail of four journalists from IWACU, “one of the country’s last independent media outlets”.
Eritrea worst performing, China tightening grip
The five top African countries of the 180 surveyed are Namibia (24), Cape Verde (27), Ghana (30), South Africa (32) and Burkina Faso (37). Eritrea (180) is now the worst performing country in the world, swapping positions with North Korea (179). The two nations, along with Turkmenistan (178) and China (177) are perennial losers on the RSF index. The media is entirely controlled in these four countries. Turkmenistan and North Korea, for example, are able to claim they have no Covid-19 cases, and Eritrea has “maintained complete silence about the fate of 11 journalists who were arrested 20 years ago, some of whom have allegedly been held in metal containers in the middle of a desert”.
The strictures on the media in China are ominous. As RSF describes it, the government has “tightened their grip on news and information even more since the emergence of Covid-19. Seven journalists are still being held for their coverage of the pandemic and more than 450 social media users were briefly arrested for sharing ‘false rumours’ about the virus. In 2021, China continues to be the world’s biggest jailer of press freedom defenders, with more than 120 currently detained, often in conditions that pose a threat to their lives.
“By relying on the massive use of new technology, President Xi Jinping’s regime has imposed a social model based on control of news and information and online surveillance of its citizens. China’s state and privately-owned media are under the Communist Party’s ever-tighter control, while the administration creates more and more obstacles for foreign reporters. At the same time, Beijing is trying to export its oppressive model by promoting a ‘new world media order’ under China’s influence.”
Africa the most violent continent for journalists
RSF points out that Africa continues to be the most violent continent for journalists to work, and, as with dictatorial governments around the world, of which China above is an example, Covid-19 has been used as a way to clamp down on press freedom. “African journalists were hit hard by the coronavirus crisis in 2020, suffering three times as many attacks and arrests from 15 March to 15 May as during the same period the year before. On the pretext of combatting disinformation and hate speech, many countries have adopted new laws in recent years with vague and draconian provisions that can easily be used to gag journalists. Another disturbing phenomenon is the increase in online attacks, often by trolls close or directly linked to the government, that are designed to discredit or intimidate journalists.”
According to RSF, violations of press freedom in Africa are rampant. They include “arbitrary censorship, especially on the internet (by means of ad hoc internet cuts in some countries), arrests of journalists on the grounds of combatting cybercrime, fake news or terrorism, and acts of violence against media personnel that usually go completely unpunished. Respect for press freedom is still largely dependent on the political and social context. Elections and protests are often accompanied by abuses against journalists.”
Some examples mentioned in the RSF report: In Zimbabwe (120), investigative reporter Hopewell Chin’ono was arrested after helping to expose the over-billing practices of a medical equipment supply company. In Egypt (166), the government banned the publication of any pandemic statistics that didn’t come from the Ministry of Health, and arrested anyone who claimed larger figures, officially termed “circulating rumours”. Tanzania (124) was even more worrying. Before his recent death, President John Magufuli called the virus a “western conspiracy”, claiming that Tanzania had used the force of prayer to keep Covid-19 away, and imposed an information blackout on the pandemic. His successor, Samia Suluhu Hassan, has started to reverse this policy, saying it is “not proper to ignore” the coronavirus.
Pandemic being used as ground to block access to information
The RSF Press Freedom Index data reflect “a dramatic deterioration in people’s access to information and an increase in obstacles to news coverage. The coronavirus pandemic has been used as a ground to block journalists’ access to information, sources and reporting in the field.” The key question here is, will governments remove or lessen the restrictions when the pandemic is over, or will they opportunistically cement them into law and practice?
The global picture for journalism is bleak. The RSF Index shows that journalism is “totally blocked or seriously impeded in 73 countries and constrained in 59 others, which together represent 73% of the countries evaluated”. In fact, only 12 of the 180 countries surveyed — a scary 7% — can claim to offer a favourable environment for journalism.
Destroying trust between journalists and citizens
Part and parcel of the erosion of media freedoms is the efforts of governments and other bad actors to destroy the relationship of trust between journalism and citizens. The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer shows a disturbing mistrust in journalism globally, with 59% of people believing that “journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations”. The same percentage believe that “most news organisations are more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than with informing the public”.
Media’s role in battling misinformation
The report “reveals an epidemic of misinformation and widespread mistrust of societal institutions and leaders around the world. Adding to this is a failing trust ecosystem unable to confront the rampant infodemic, leaving the four institutions — business, government, NGOs and media — in an environment of information bankruptcy and a mandate to rebuild trust and chart a new path forward.”
Although the media is the pillar that is the most mistrusted among the countries surveyed, it is also the means by which we must push back at the war on truth. As the Edelman report notes, “the urgent issues confronting society require a knowledgeable public able to make choices based on unbiased information — not fear, compulsion, or conspiracy theories. Every institution must play its part in restoring facts to their rightful place at the centre of public discourse as the essential step to emerging from information bankruptcy.”
This includes fact-checking organisations like Code for Africa’s Pesacheck, and investigative journalism such as that produced by our iLab team of data analysts and journalists. But crucially, it will need the support of the consumers of news, who will need to continue to become co-producers if we are to push back against the erosion of freedoms.
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A version of this essay, focused on South Africa’s position in the RSF Press Freedom Index, appeared in the Financial Mail on 29 April 2021. https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/2021-04-29-chris-roper-the-fragility-of-press-freedom/
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Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of civic technology and data journalism labs, with teams in 12 countries. CfA builds digital democracy solutions that give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions, and that strengthens civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability. This includes building infrastructure like the continent’s largest open data portals at openAFRICA and sourceAFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative and the sensors.AFRICA air quality sensor network.
CfA also manages that African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which gives the continent’s best muckraking newsrooms the best possible forensic forensic data tools, digital security and whistleblower encryption to help improve their ability to tackle crooked politicians, organised crime and predatory big business. CfA also runs one of Africa’s largest skills development initiatives for digital journalists, and seed funds cross-border collaboration.
