By Nana Ama Gyapong
Sadibou Marong, the Director for West Africa, Reporters Without Borders has revealed that Ghana was ranked 60th, dropping by 30 places on the World Press Freedom Index due to certain factors which include the Security of Journalists being compromised. He made his submission on the GTV’s Breakfast Show via zoom.
The 2022 Index put together by the campaign group, Reporters Without Borders, saw Ghana ranking 60 after placing 30 in 2022.
Speaking to the issue, the Director for West Africa’s Reporters Without Borders said “if we highlight the Security and Safety of Journalists, there is a big problem in there for example this year we have recorded several brutalities against Journalists which is a worrying trend of the Safety of Journalists as well as death threats”.
He continued by saying that “in terms of properties, we have a feeling that the ownership of media, this kind of polarization between politicians owning media is another thing so we took that also into consideration and roughly this should serve as a wake-up call for Ghana itself, stakeholders, authorities and for all those who are around the media to seek how to better improve the situation beginning from now”.
Upon answering whether there has been any feedback from the government, Mr. Marong said “what we do generally is after we’ve launched the index, we use it to work around the advocacy to authorities in Ghana which will be sent during the week and we will be engaging with the appropriate authorities because Ghana is a priority country for Reporters Without Borders”. This is Ghana’s lowest-ever ranking in 17 years after it ranked 66th and 67th in 2005 and 2002 respectively.
