Reporters Without Borders’ 2019 World Press Freedom Index listed Ethiopia among the most improved countries, alongside Gambia, while Ghana slipped, Africanews noted.
The index still classed most of the world as problematic for journalists, so “most improved” was relative. Ethiopia’s jump reflected prisoner releases and a softer climate after emergency-rule years, not a finished free press.
Abiy Ahmed’s early tenure harvested that ranking as reform proof. Later arrests of journalists and wartime information controls rewrote how durable that improvement really was.
Keeping the 2019 ranking in the archive is useful precisely because it freezes a high-water mark. Measuring what followed against that peak is how press-freedom claims get tested, not applauded forever.
Sources: Africanews, Reporters Without Borders
