The Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s led-Government has stated that it has taken notice of the report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on the country’s press freedom and has further stated that it will steps to ensure that the anomalies are rectified.
This was contained in a press statement dated Wednesday, May 4, 2022 and signed by the Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah.
According to him, government view the RSF report as a baseline reference document which the government believes could be used to gauge Ghana’s press freedom in the future.
The Minister continued that even though the publishers called for circumspection in comparing the 2022 report to that of 2021, due to the differences in methodology, Government is considering a raft of measures with a view to improving Ghana’s rating.
Continuing, the Minister added that Government of Ghana in line with its desire to continuously promote press freedom and the safety of journalists, intends to do the under-listed;
- Work in collaboration with the National Media Commission to deepen the execution of the Coordinated Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists.
- Collaborate with stakeholders including Civil Society Organisations in deepening education for State and non-State actors on the safety of journalists
- To address the RFS’ concern about the poor economic conditions of most journalists in the country, government will continue engagements with media associations including media owners to improve the working and economic conditions of journalists.
- Collaborate with stakeholders in the fight against disinformation and spread of fake news”, the statement revealed.
- Touching on the positive highlights of the report, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, noted Ghana’s areas of strides, stating that, “Ghana performed creditably well in three (3) of the five (5) parameters under the new methodology, namely, Political Context, Legal Framework and Social Context. Ghana scored 66%, 81% and 79% in that order.
- It is worthy of note that this rather significant performance amidst a general downgrade is largely due to initiatives such as the passage of the Right to Information Act, the Coordinated Mechanism on Safety of Journalists and the Media Capacity Enhancement Programme”.
- On the lows of the report, the Ofoase Ayirebi MP acknowledged that, “Ghana’s performance on the safety of journalists leaves room for improvement”. Adding that, “Ghana’s performance on Economic Context is very poor and must equally reserved”.
- The Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a France-base NGO on Wednesday, published a report, detailing Ghana’s performance in terms of press freedom.
The RSF in its report indicated that Ghana has dropped 30 places in its latest press freedom index for the year 2022.
The report, according to RSF was released to commemorate international Press Freedom Day, 2022, and added that Ghana 67.43, placing the country 60th on the index that monitors 180 countries.
Ghana’s current position makes it the lowest the country has ever seen in the past 17 years after it placed 66th in the year 2005.
Ghana has however placed 10th on the African continent behind a number of African countries, including Burkina-Faso which ranked 6th.
The reporter further mentioned that Ghana previously ranked first in Africa in 2018 and quickly added that the position is currently being occupied by Seychelles.
According to the report, government has shown itself intolerant of criticism adding that one-third of media outlets are owned by politicians or by people tied to the top political parties and explained contents produced by these media outlets is largely partisan.
Pointing to part of reasons the country’s dip in performance, the Reporters Without Borders, stated that based on its findings, journalists in Ghana do not earn decent incomes to sustain their livelihoods. It further stated that it therefore scored Ghana 47.22, in terms of the economic context of journalists.
The report continued that other indicators used in the computation of Ghana’s current rating included the country’s political, social, legislative and security contexts, amongst others.
On the findings of the report, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah further remarked “It is important to emphasize that the change in methodology significantly accounted for the drop in ranking for a number of countries including the Netherlands that dropped from 5 (2021) to 28 (2022) in global ranking.
Due to this development, four (4) of the countries (Netherlands, Jamaica, Switzerland and New Zealand) that ranked top ten (10) in 2021 significantly dropped in ranking, slumping out of the top ten (10) in the year under review”.
According to him the country’s dip in ranking could be attributed to two of the new parameters, namely, the Economic Context and Safety of Journalists where the country scored 47.22% and 62.25% respectively.
Ghana comparatively performed better in guaranteeing safety of journalists (62.25%) juxtaposed to economic factors that influence media work (47.22 %) underpinned by poor salaries for journalists and the lack of financial sustainability of some media houses, making a number of them economically less viable”.
Meanwhile, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has condemned portions of the 2022 World Press Freedom Index which tagged the Akufo-Addo administration as “intolerant of criticism from citizens and the media”.
The party argued that, in contrast, the media under the NPP is the freest ever.
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