Belarus Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
April 7, 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 produced the first Europe & Eurasia MSI in 2001.
MSI Overview | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download the Complete Belarus MSI Chapter (PDF): 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001
MSI Belarus - 2013 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.09
Belarus maintained its abysmally low MSI score, virtually unchanged from last year. Only two out forty indicators even approached a score of 2, or “near sustainability,” those addressing professional associations of journalists and short-term training opportunities. Six indicators scored near zero, all of which related to the government’s regulation of, or interference with, the media sector. Licensing and registration of outlets, crimes against journalists, editorial independence, self-censorship, government subsidies, and channels of media distribution remain the stiffest barriers to independent media.
Belarus has almost 1,800 registered media outlets, including about 700 newspapers, 166 radio and 89 television stations; about two-thirds of these are private. What might look like a vibrant media sector at first glance masks a more polarized and hostile environment that stifles press freedom and limits both reporting impartiality and quality. The government retains control over most of the “old media,” either via direct ownership or heavy–handed regulation. State-owned media essentially speak with a single voice, and state television remains the most popular (62.7 percent of the audience) source of news, according to an independent opinion poll.
Dissenting voices are gagged using economic and legal pressure. Critical coverage is undertaken at risk of breaking the law, either on legal grounds of “extremism” or “insulting a representative of authorities.” Self-censorship is common across the spectrum. Libel remains criminalized. Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent for Poland’s largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, once again faced charges of libeling Belarus’s hardline President Aleksandr Lukashenka, and even spent a week in prison.
Separately, 20-year-old photographer Anton Surapin spent over a month in jail after he posted pictures of teddy bears online. Teddy bears holding cards and banners in support of free speech were dropped from a light aircraft that illegally flown into Belarus; the stunt was organized by a Swedish advertising company. Surapin was charged with assisting an illegal border crossing.
Lukashenka, in power since 1994, heads a Soviet-era administration that is secretive, opaque, and essentially restricts access to public information. Legislative and judicial branches are mere rubber-stamps, hardly offering any protection from attacks on the media. Even media distribution channels such as newspaper kiosks, the postal service, and the broadcasting and telecom infrastructure remain largely state-owned and thus selective on political grounds.
A handful of private newspapers, expatriate broadcasters, and online media continue to offer more balanced reporting and a variety of viewpoints. Online media is the most freewheeling in their coverage, offering critical reports and debate on many social issues; the independent poll showed the Internet is the chief source of news for 34.3 percent of the population. At least two pro-opposition news websites were blacklisted by the government, educational institutions, and libraries. A total of 80 websites were on the classified blacklist, mostly extremist and pornographic sites, the government claimed.
