About the MSI
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IREX designed the MSI to measure the strength and viability of any country's media sector. The MSI considers all the factors that contribute to a media system—the quality of journalism, effectiveness of management, the legal environment supporting freedom of the press, and more—to arrive at scores on a scale ranging between 0 and 4. These scores represent the strength of the media sector components and can be analyzed over time to chart progress (or regression) within a country. Additionally, countries or regions may be compared to one another. IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and began studying Africa in 2006.
MSI Overview [8] | Africa [9] | Asia [10] | Europe & Eurasia [11] | Middle East & North Africa [12]
MSI Methodology [13]
Download Complete Rwanda Chapter (PDF): 2012 [14] | 2010 [15] | 2009 [16] | 2008 [17] | 2006/7 [18] | 2006/7 (français) [19]
MSI Rwanda-2012 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.94
With a government that still uses the country’s history of genocide to suppress media freedom, Rwanda’s journalists continue to work in a difficult environment. Rampant abuses of journalists’ rights persist—with security personnel seemingly the greatest offenders. In 2012, a number of journalists reported being beaten and harassed by security officers.
Journalists working for private and government media all suffer, although it is believed to be worse within the private media. Furthermore, the abuse continues in the presence of several Rwandese media associations that fail to condemn such acts or stir to help their colleagues in trouble. Some journalists attribute this paralysis to fear by the leaders of these associations, while others believe many of these leaders are vulnerable to government influence.
Journalists who are critical of the current government continue to flee the country, fearing for their lives. Many of those who remain follow what Rwandese journalists call “play it safe journalism,” only filing stories that praise the country’s leadership.
Alongside the dwindling numbers of critical journalists, no serious opposition leadership remains in Rwanda after the arrest of Victoire Ingabire, the leader of The Unified Democratic Forces in April 2010. Last year, he was sentenced to eight years in jail, a penalty that serves as a chilling warning to potential challengers to President Paul Kagame’s government.
Despite these serious concerns, MSI panelists acknowledge that state-inspired crimes against journalists have fallen compared with previous years. They also point to other improvements on the government’s part in observing press freedom, in comparison with previous years. Most significantly, on a few occasions government officials have stepped up to order the prosecution of soldiers who harass journalists. Still, such cases end up taking years, with seemingly endless investigations.