South Africa, which tends to view itself as an oasis of democracy in a chaotic continent, may be surprised to find that it has been ranked fourth in terms of media freedom in Africa, trailing Benin, Namibia and Cape Verde.
The annual Reporters Without Borders (RWB) World Press Freedom index still ranks South Africa a respectable 31st out of 167 countries worldwide. The RWB cites this as evidence that ”countries that have recently won their independence or have recovered it are very observant of press freedom”.
But Console Tleane of the Freedom of Expression Institute called for caution rather than celebration. ”It is true that we don’t have a situation where journalists are threatened with physical harm. However, there is a worrying trend where those with economic and political power are resorting to the courts and other forms of harassment.”
Tleane said threats to press freedom did not emanate only from state bodies, but also from powerful companies and individuals, as multimillion-rand lawsuits were potentially crippling.
”There are a number of defamation cases before the courts, involving papers like the Mail & Guardian and the Business Day,” he said. ”It is the smaller papers that constantly face the threats of being closed down.” The M&G is being sued, among others, by wealthy oil trader Sandi Majali and the African National Congress over its Oilgate revelations.
Mozambique has jumped from 64th to 49th in the world rankings as a result of the severe sentences handed down to the men convicted of killing independent journalist Carlos Cardoso.
The ”black holes” for the press in Africa are Somalia (149th), Zimbabwe (153rd), Libya (162nd) and Eritrea (166th).
Swaziland (118th) fares badly in the ranking and is the second worst in the SADC region, after Zimbabwe. The tiny monarchy’s bill of rights was suspended in 1973.
Zimbabwe is in the company of countries like Iraq (157th), Cuba (161st) and Eritrea (166th), where privately-owned newspapers are outlawed.
Seven European countries, mostly Nordic, occupy joint first place. Lowest-ranked is North Korea, where according to the RWB, reporters are expected to do little else but reproduce state propaganda and are even jailed for misspelling names.