The country’s ranking fell from 60th region ultimate year to 62nd in 2023. However, amongst African countries, Ghana placed 9th, an improvement from its tenth function in the 2022 report. This is Ghana’s worst performance in 18 years considering it placed 66th in 2005.
The rating also shows that Burkina Faso, in spite of being ruled by the military, banning local retransmission of global broadcasters and deporting overseas journalists, performed higher than Ghana.
African countries ranked ahead of Ghana had been Namibia (22) South Africa (25), Cabo Verde (33), Seychelles (34), the Gambia (46), Ivory Coast (54), Burkina Faso (58), and Niger (61).
“Journalism normal has come to be extra hard in this continent and the scenario is now labeled as “bad” in almost 40% of its international locations (against 33% in 2022),” the report said.
The World Press Freedom Index measures pluralism, media independence, the robustness of legislative frameworks, and the protection of journalists in a hundred and eighty international locations and 5 regions.
The file comes at a time the Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA) and others in a media coalition are calling on the authorities of President Nana Akufo-Addo to annul factors of the Electronic Communications Act, 2008 (Act 775) and the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29.
The media coalition, which includes the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), and the Private Newspapers Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG), say the two legal guidelines proceed to criminalize free expression even although Ghana repealed its crook libel law two many years ago.
“We recognize that the media and journalists can every now and then be reckless and unprofessional to the extent of publishing false and defamatory stories. Fortunately, the laws of the u . s . grant aggrieved entities treatments for civil moves towards citizens, journalists and media organizations.
“It is regrettable, therefore, that repressive provisions of the Electronic Communications Act and the Criminal and different offences Act are being weaponized to muzzle free speech under the Akufo-Addo regime,” said the President of the GJA, Albert Kwabena Dwumfour.
The 2023 Press Freedom Index spotlights the fast outcomes of faux content on press freedom. Per the report, in 118 international locations (two-thirds of the a hundred and eighty nations evaluated by using the index), most of the index questionnaire’s respondents pronounced that political actors in their international locations had been often or systematically involved in big disinformation or propaganda campaigns.
Ghana recorded its first-class performance when it ranked 22nd globally in 2015. In 2018, the united states used to be ranked wide variety one in Africa and twenty third in the world.