Angola Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
April 24, 2013
About the MSI
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 | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download Complete Angola Chapter (PDF): 2012 | 2010
MSI Angola - 2012 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.78
Angola did not progress much in freedom of speech or freedom of the press since last year. Despite a modestly higher score given by this year’s panelists, there are many signs of trouble concerning the future of the media sector. While the government enhanced its control of the public media prior to the general elections held in August 2012, unnamed companies strengthened their control over most of the private-sector media. This development ran counter to the fact that Angolan legislation forbids any media outlet from being owned and/or controlled by unknown companies. As a result, entities hidden from the public’s eye seem to exercise a high degree of censorship over the content of the news offered through private media and public media are clearly under the sway of the ruling party.
As examples, two weekly newspapers—A CAPITAL and Semanário Angolense—were censored after they tried to publish an interview and a speech of opposition leaders Vicente Pinto de Andrade and Isaias Samakuva. The leadership of both papers cited differing explanations that did not convince the public in general, and the media community in particular, of their sincerity.
All reports of media organizations and unions, both national and international, have noted an almost abusive excess of media coverage of the ruling party by the public media. Meanwhile, activities, entities, and views of the opposition and the so-called independent civil society are often severely edited to minimize their relevance and exposure. In addition, more progressive media legislation remained unapproved by the National Assembly, and private media outlets and journalists continued to be taken to court charged with defamation, including by the major opposition party, UNITA.
In all, the panelists and moderator concluded that although the legislation continues to be largely favorable toward freedom of speech, in reality the application of the laws has worsened compared with the previous year. Furthermore, they felt that most of the actions taken against free media came from government and quasi-governmental institutions and officials.
As noted above, the country has improved its overall score by 0.21 point (from 1.57 to 1.78). That modest improvement can best be explained by similarly better evaluations by the panelists of most of the Objectives; only Objective 4, Business Management, remained unchanged compared with last year. Paradoxically, the increase in score does not necessarily mean improvement in the working conditions for media professionals has been seen, nor has there been an improvement of the content media outlets carry. Angola remains in the same place as 2010: the upper half of the “unsustainable, mixed system” scoring category.
