Effects of Access to Information Law on Print Media Journalism Practice in Rwanda

Rwanda established the law n 04/2013 of 08/02/2013 relating to access to information to enable the public and journalists to access information possessed by public organs and some private bodies and to establish modalities and procedures to promote the publication and dissemination of information. Nevertheless some journalists and some people complained that they were not well informed although the access to information law was in force. This controversy situation pushed the researcher to undertake this study whose main objective is to assess the effects of access to information law on print media journalism practice in Rwanda precisely in Kigali City from 2014 until 2016. In accordance with the stratified random sampling technique 62 journalists have been taken as sample size. The interviews have been conducted with 1 sub-editor, 2 editors, 2 managers of newspapers, 4 decision makers in the journalism domain in Rwanda, the Director who is in charge of media issues in the Office of the Ombudsman and one expert in journalism. The study relies on primary and secondary data but mainly on the primary data. Thanks to the questionnaire and the interview guides data have been collected. The quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to analyze the data collected. . The findings confirmed that the respondents are aware of the existence of the law but some of them do not understand its content. However a big number of journalists use the law in their daily tasks and confirmed its positive effects on the journalistic practice. All interviewees argued that the law is very useful in the print media journalistic practice but there was a big room for its improvement. The study revealed also that few journalists who faced the problems related to that law turned to the office of the ombudsman.