Benin

The Republic of Benin is a West African presidential republic of roughly 14–15 million people, bordered by Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria, with Porto-Novo as its official capital and Cotonou as its largest city and seat of government. A former French colony, known as Dahomey until 1975 and independent since 1 August 1960, Benin is a francophone, lower-middle-income economy that has posted growth of around 6% in recent years, driven by agriculture (notably cotton), the port of Cotonou and the Glo-Djigbé Industrial Zone, even as poverty and a growing jihadist threat in the north, linked to Sahel-based militant networks including JNIM, weigh on the country. After a decade under President Patrice Talon (2016–2026), the ruling-coalition candidate Romuald Wadagni was elected president in the April 2026 election and inaugurated on 24 May 2026 for a seven-year term; the contest, which the Constitutional Court confirmed with 94.27% of the vote, was criticised by opposition and rights groups as a heavily managed succession, following a failed coup attempt in December 2025 and January 2026 legislative elections in which pro-Talon parties won all 109 seats.

Benin’s media environment has deteriorated sharply over the past decade. Reporters Without Borders ranked Benin 113th of 180 in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 47.39, placing it in the “difficult” category, a fall of 21 places in a single year and a much larger decline over the Talon decade, during which RSF has documented repeated media suspensions and legal proceedings against journalists. Broadcasting and the wider media sector are regulated by the Haute Autorité de l’Audiovisuel et de la Communication (HAAC), a constitutional body whose independence and conduct have themselves been the subject of criticism. In a notable early signal, the government formed after Wadagni’s inauguration named Aurélie Adam Soulé Zoumarou to a restored Ministry of Communication in charge of Media; Beninese media reported the move as the re-establishment of a dedicated communication portfolio that had been folded into other structures since 2021, and read it as a possible course-correction after years of decline. National policy has prioritised digital transformation, but no sector-specific rules on AI-generated or synthetic news content in the state media were identified.

Benin’s state-owned media in this dataset comprise two organisations, both classified State-Controlled (SC), a fully state-controlled public-media layer operating within an increasingly constrained national press environment. The Société de radio et de télévision du Bénin (SRTB) is the national public broadcaster, created by Decree No. 2023-582 of 8 November 2023 through the merger of the former Office de radiodiffusion et de télévision du Bénin (ORTB) with the youth-media centre CMAJB; it operates three television channels and four radio stations and is predominantly state-funded; Beninese media reported that its director-general was replaced on an interim basis in March 2026, amid contested internal reforms. Reporters Without Borders reports that SRTB is required to relay the government’s message and that a government-composed editorial committee reviews television news reports in advance. The Office national d’imprimerie et de presse (ONIP) is the state press and printing enterprise, publisher of the national public-service daily La Nation and operator of the Nation Impressions printing house; its statutes were approved by Decree No. 2025-024 of 29 January 2025, and the State Media Monitor review finds La Nation’s editorial line closely aligned with the ruling administration through structural dependency rather than overt censorship.

Media profiles