MoI: Change In Methodology Caused Ghana’s Dip In RSF Rankings
The Ministry for Information has attributed Ghana’s seemingly poor performance in Press Freedom to a change in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) methodology in framing up the 2022 World Press Freedom Index.
“It is our understanding that the 2022 report was developed with a new methodology by the RSF, which considers legal framework and justice system, technological censorship and surveillance, disinformation and propaganda, arbitrary detentions and proceedings, independence and pluralism, models and good practices, media sustainability and Violence against journalists”.
It rested on the fact that the index relied on five parameters including Media landscape, political context, legal framework, economic context, and safety of journalists.
“It is worthy of note that Ghana’s dip in the ranking was largely influenced by two new parameters namely Economic Context and Safety of journalists where the country scored 47.22% and 62.25% respectively.”
According to the Ministry, Ghana performed well under the new methodology in Press Freedom.
“Ghana performed creditably well in three of the five parameters under the new methodology namely Political context, Lega framework, and social context.”
It attributed the “creditable performance” to the passage of the Right to Information Act, Coordinated Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists, and the Media Capacity Enhancement Programme.
That notwithstanding, the Ministry conceded that the safety of journalists must be improved as well as the economic context.
In a recently released report from the RSF, Ghana ranked 60th globally.
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini
