Mauritania Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
March 16, 2012
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 Mauritania Chapter (PDF): 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2006/7 (français)
MSI Mauritania–2010 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.54
The year 2010 proved momentous for Mauritania’s media. among the most important breakthroughs, the government moved to liberalize the broadcast media. Prior to this decision, Mauritania’s government had maintained a monopoly in the broadcast sector, comprised mainly of the state outlets télévision de Mauritanie (tVM) and radio Mauritanie. at the time of the MSi panel no private broadcast outlets had yet launched, but the panelists expressed hope this would soon change.
Additionally, Mauritania previously had only one regional radio station, in Nouadhibou, but the government opened regional stations in the towns of Aïoun, Kiffa, Kaédi, Atar, Tidjikja, Sélibabi, Zouerate, Néma, and Akjoujt, and some of these stations have become operational.
The growth in new media heralded in last year’s MSI continued as well, with a new press agency, Sahara Media Agency, offering multimedia content online. Additionally, the daily newspapers (le Quotidien de Nouakchott, Nouakchott Info) launched a paying subscriber service in French and Arabic to receive information and news alerts on multimedia telephones. SMS news alerts in minority languages are also appearing.
Another positive stride was the creation of a public institution, the National School of Administration, Journalism and Law (known by its French acronym, ENAJM). Before this development, Mauritania’s media had no formal journalism school. The media community hopes that the new school will answer the need to elevate professional standards and give journalists who previously had to travel abroad for their training a choice to obtain their training in Mauritania.
These improvements notwithstanding, some within the government have not caught up with the new regulatory changes, as seen in the warning to online media sent with the sentencing of cyber journalist Hanevy Ould Denah to two years in prison for defamation and offending public decency. (He was pardoned by President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and freed after serving eight months.) The move heralded the government’s interest in regulating the online media, answered by the year’s end by the Council of Ministers’ approval of a law governing the electronic media in Mauritania that stipulates, among other things, that Internet service providers (ISPs) operating in Mauritania shall be held accountable before the law.
In addition to such mixed signals from the government, other problems that hurt Mauritania’s prospects for media sustainability include the ingrained preferential treatment for state media, censorship and intimidation of journalists, and the lack of lawyers trained to defend media rights in the country. Furthermore, in terms of business management, neither private nor public outlets can be described as well managed.
