Liberia is located along the coast of West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest, Sierra Leone to the west, Guinea to the north, and Cote d’Ivoire to the east. Liberia is made up of fifteen political sub-divisions called counties. Montserrado is the most populated county, and hosts Monrovia, the capital city and largest commercial hub. Liberia has a total land area of approximately 111,000 square kilometers and a coastline of 580 km. Of the total land area, roughly 96,000 square kilometers is land mass, and the remainder is composed of rivers, lakes, and wetlands.
Indigenous Africans migrated from the Songhai Kingdom to present day Liberia between the 12th and 16th centuries A.D. The first settlers arrived in 1821 on Providence Island from New York. The number of immigrants that arrived from 1821 to 1843 was 4,571. These immigrants were freed slaves sponsored by the American Colonization Society (ACS).
Liberia is a mosaic of many people and cultures. There are sixteen (16) tribes; each having a distinct language and subculture. The cultural heritage is also rich. Storytelling, short parables and proverbs are common. The Liberian handshake, which ends with snapping of the fingers, is unique only to Liberia. Other unique features of the Liberian heritage include the collarless Vai shirt, the V-shaped finger ring, and the highlife dance music, which originated from Liberia, but is now popular along the West African coast.
Liberia media landscape current Situational Context (Summary):
The current media environment though bedeviled by challenges in certain quarters is quite good when it comes to freedom of the press and the availability as well as reliability news outlets cum channels.
The Media Foundation for West Africa highlighted some of the recurrent drawbacks in its 2022 reports such as assaults on journalists and attacks on media houses, arson and seizure of equipment of journalists.
The Liberian media is actively progressive and adequately contributing its quota to the governance process as the fourth branch but also an active contributor to our maturing democracy. As stated by the maxim “The free press is the oxygen democracy needs to thrive”. In a nutshell, if you would like to stifle or kill democracy as a form of government, just attack and if possible obliterate the media. For more than a decade now, the media space in Liberia has seen lesser death, brutality as well as incarceration of journalists and other media actors. Besides, since the ending of the civil war and the consolidation of peace as well as democratic governance, the country has witnessed the drawbacks on draconian media laws such as the infamous decree 88A and the promotion of pro-free press laws such as the Freedom of Information act and the Table Mountain Declaration; both domesticated and passed into law by the Legislature in 2010 and 2019, respectively. Furthermore, other good laws that are driving the buoyancy of the Liberian media space originate from the country’s constitution which guarantees press freedom.
As regards information dissemination, urban Liberia enjoys plethora of avenues through which it gets news effectively and efficiently. These include print, electronic, audiovisual and digital (Internet).
Based on 2022 statistics gathered from Internews Liberia, there were 163 radio stations spread across the country with at least 30,000 citizens having access to one radio station; which remains the major source of information mainly in rural Liberia.
In addition to the proliferation of traditional media, there is increasing boom in the consumption of media content via the internet and social media. According to a report by the Media Foundation for West Africa, “As of January 2022, there were 1.15million internet users, in the country of 5.193million citizens. There are some 748,200 social media users and an internet penetration of 22%”.
As the government gets ready for the connection of additional fiber Optic cable, it is rightly assumed that the internet penetration is bound to double thus positively affecting the general population with emphasis on rural areas.
The fact of the issue is such that approximately 90 % of the active media are mostly concentrated and focused largely on the urban areas. This is where these media institutions have theirs headquarters and operate; a clear sort of bias that favor urban areas as opposed to rural parts of the country. Most do not have the institutional capacity and financial wherewithal to employ reporters in the rural or interior parts of the country. On the hand, there are lots of rural reporters and citizens as well as fewer journalists who make it their duties to report the news happening in local communities but are seriously hampered by issues such as the absence of 24/7 news outlets such as a website solely committed to reporting breaking news, latest development oriented stories, and local community crimes among others.
To conclude, the latest global press freedom rankings by Reporters Without Borders (2022) Liberia scaled 23 places up the pecking order, from its previous year’s (2021) ranking of 93/180. Even so, the 2022 ranking – 75/180 – indicates that more needs to be done.
That said, the MFA working in concert with Center for Media Studies and Peace Building (CEMESP) have urged the government to ensure that perpetrators of attacks on media organizations and practitioners are swiftly prosecuted to instill deterrence. Government is also urged to establish a national media regulatory mechanism to proactively monitor the performance of journalists.
In the same vein, Media organizations are urged to prioritize the safety of their staff, journalists themselves are also urged to take safety issues seriously while, ensuring that they employ the highest professional standards in their work.
Synopsis of Rural Issues and Challenges:
Challenges faced by rural journalists in Liberia vis-a-vis in the discharge of their Watchdog duties:
- Lack of adequate training opportunities for young and upcoming reporters of becoming career journalists
- The inadequacy news gathering tools and equipment such as cameras, voice recorders, laptop computers, and video recorder among others
- Means of employment or sources of income is lacking or almost nonexistent
- Many a times, there is no or limited outlet for effective, efficient and timely dissemination of evolving and contemporary happenings cum news nationwide.
- General poverty related issues with which rural communities are confronted.
