Sierra Leone Dubbed the World’s Second Most Dangerous Place to be a Journalist

May 26th, 2008 · No Comments

Sierra Leone gets more then its fair share of bad press. It seems that nearly every week a new study, list or statistic is published that places the country at or close to the bottom of the “ranking du jour”.

Perhaps most notably the country is working to shake the stigma that comes with being ranked the world’s least developed nation, which, according to last year’s UN Human Development Index, places Sierra Leone 177th out the 177 countries judged. Conflict countries, Afghanistan and Iraq for instance, were omitted from the list due to lack of reliable statistics. This however is a minor detail; for all intents and purposes Sierra Leone is world’s least developed country.

It’s seems rare here for an NGO to deliver a speech or report without mentioning this fact. Choosing not to mince words, or pass up an opportunity for dramatics, those in the development community often bluntly refer to Sierra Leone as “the planets poorest country”. The moniker gets tossed around so much I half expect it to be printed on the country’s currency.

Some of these labels are well founded and serve a purpose; some are skewed and seem instead to serve a particular agenda. Others appear simply to be sensational, helping to further Sierra Leone’s reputation as a hotbed for underdevelopment.

A study released late last month by the New York based “Committee to Protect Journalists” placed Sierra Leone near the top of their “Impunity Index”. Second only to Iraq, Sierra Leone has, according to the CPJ’s list, more unsolved murders of journalists then any other country in Africa.

I’m not disputing the validity of the study’s numbers, and I’m certainly not negating the right that local reporters have to safety and security. But I do worry that Sierra Leone’s new standing as the “world’s second most dangerous place to be a journalist” will do nothing to help repair the country’s tarnished repute. According to the study the murder of nine Sierra Leonean journalists, occurring between 1998 and 2007, remain unsolved. The most recent case dates back to 2005. While this number is unacceptable I do question whether it’s truly reflective of the current state of media in the country.

One of the main problems with the survey is that it fails to address whether the real issue is the risk facing Sierra Leonean journalists, or the ineptitude of the national police force. Because the “impunity index” only takes into account unsolved cases there’s reason to believe that more journalist murders may well take place in other countries, it’s simply that their police forces are more successful at finding and convicting the perpetrators. Having already had a number of encounters with the police during my three months in the country I’m prone to thinking that the core issue is more likely to be related to the poor quality of law enforcement.

The time period measured also falls squarely within the bloodiest years of Sierra Leone’s civil war. Journalists were murdered during this time, yes, yet so were countless others who threatened the influence of the vicious rebel regime. Since the end of the war the study found only one murder of a journalist remaining unsolved.

There are undoubtedly a number of problems that plague the media sector in Sierra Leone. The country lacks a formal freedom of information act, liable laws are too strict and the vast majority of working journalists fail to make a livable wage. While these are important issues they don’t indicate a serious threat to the lives of journalists. Instead the CPJ’s “Impunity Index” lays yet another unfortunate distinction upon a country whose tourism brochure could already read like a grizzly Stephen King novel.

As a journalist I’m all for letting the truth speak for itself, but the sad reality is that the truth in Sierra Leon often has many faces, choosing which to display can either help or hurt the image of the country. While Sierra Leone’s new standing as the “world’s second most dangerous place to be a journalist” may not be truly representative of the nation’s media sector, it is indicative of the Sierra Leone’s struggle against labels.

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