Libya Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
April 22, 2011
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 Middle East and North Africa MSI in 2005.
MSI Overview | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download the Complete Libya MSI Chapter (PDF): 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2005
MSI Libya - 2009 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 0.47
After two years of cautious optimism, this year saw marked decline in conditions for independent media in Libya, the MSI panelists reported. The country's brief experiment with private media came to an abrupt end in 2009, with the nationalization of the satellite television channel and newspapers owned by Al Ghad Media Corporation, a company that Saif al Islam al Qadhafi (Muammar Qadhafi's son) supports. While they existed, the private newspaper Oea in Tripoli, Quryna newspaper in Benghazi, and satellite television channel Al Libeyya challenged the government's longstanding monopoly on media. Unlike their state-run peers, these outlets addressed corruption and under-performing government officials and institutions—although certain issues, including the Qadhafi regime itself, remained sacrosanct.
In June 2009, it became clear that the government was no longer interested in tolerating even mild criticism. Authorities announced that private outlets would continue to operate but the National Center for Media Services would control them. In January 2010, after the panelists submitted their scores, the General Press Authority banned Oea and Quryna from publishing, on the grounds that the newspapers had failed to pay a series of bills. The outlets continued to operate online.
As in previous years, the panelists reported that the government uses the country's opaque legal system to persecute journalists and eliminate dissent, while ignoring sections of the law that protect the freedom of speech and the rights of journalists. In 2009, multiple writers, commentators, and journalists were arrested for insulting public officials. The Good Evening Benghazi radio program continued to face governmental pressure; authorities summoned host Ahmed Khalifa and several guests for questioning. Although draft legislation has existed for years, once again in 2009 the government failed to implement new laws on the press and civil society.
While the Libyan government lifted its 25-year embargo on foreign publications in February 2009, the panelists reported that this decision has yet to make a significant impact. Publications from other Arab countries and the West are hard to find and prohibitively expensive. Additionally, the government still enforces restrictions on the distribution of Libyan pro-reform magazines, such as Arajen and Libyan Forum, which are printed outside the country.
The Internet remains the sole venue for Libyans to express themselves openly and access impartial news and commentary. News sites and blogs run by Libyans continued to expand in number and improve in quality, in spite of the Qadhafi regime's attempts to censor content and threaten authors. The government has specifically targeted websites run by Libyans living abroad, and has even carried out personal attacks on the journalists that run the sites, hacking their email addresses and stealing personal information.
According to the panelists, hope for the "Libya of tomorrow" (a phrase that Saif al Islam al Qadhafi uses often) has dimmed significantly over the past year. It is clear that the Qadhafi regime is not interested in pursuing genuine reforms and reformers within the government are powerless to implement their agendas.
