Guinea 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 Guinea Chapter (PDF): 2012 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2006/7 (français)
MSI Guinea-2012 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 2.11
Since the election of Alpha Condé as president in 2010, Guinea has been moving toward holding legislative elections. Yet this process comes as the country’s social fabric has been greatly strained by ethnic tensions over the presidential election. Political dialogue between the government and the opposition parties has deadlocked in the absence of a consensus on restructuring the National Independent Electoral Commission and on the proper management of the voter rolls, which the opposition has set as the necessary preconditions for an election.
When it emerges from this transitional period, the government will still face economic challenges related to harnessing the country’s natural-resource wealth for the benefit of the average citizen. The percentage of people living under the poverty threshold rose from 49.1 percent in 2003 to 55.2 percent in 2012. The government is still far from meeting the demand for basic social services, such as electricity and water, and inflation is soaring. A return of internal insecurity in the form of armed attacks on private homes and businesses is hardly reassuring for foreign investors. Democratic freedoms have also been snatched away, with a countrywide ban on opposition-organized events.
Relative to the 2010 MSI, Guinea’s media have become slightly less sustainable. The legal environment has shown modest improvement, with new legal guarantees for journalists’ freedom of expression. A code of conduct for media coverage of elections has also been introduced. The National Transitional Council initiated a law that now requires state officials to satisfy media outlets’ requests for information. In practice, however, many of these new laws have not yet been enforced. There have been fewer incidents of violence recorded against journalists, though isolated cases are reported. The National Communication Council (CNC) still requires reform.
The Guinean media landscape has diversified somewhat, with the advent of new media outlets, particularly in radio, where there has been an increase in the number of private and community stations. Conditions for obtaining licenses have been eased. New radio stations offer more diverse choice and are more responsive to citizens’ interests. However, the weakness of the independent news sector, with no independent news agency and plagiarism concerns, limits this positive attribute.
Professional standards declined slightly. Despite the efforts made by the state, supported by various partners, graduates of journalism colleges are still far from satisfying the requirements of the job market due to poor preparation and instruction, and their flaws play out in the workplace. Salaries for media workers remain low, and facilities and infrastructure are obsolete for the state media in particular.
Business management remains a drag on media sustainability, with its low score reflecting poor management, standards, and overall economic limitations. This has a serious direct impact on the media’s profitability, and in the long term, on their viability.
