Liberia News Agency (LINA)

The Liberia News Agency (LINA) is Liberia’s state-owned national news agency, established in the late 1970s as the central news-gathering and distribution arm of the Liberian government. The agency operated bureaux across the country in its first decade with support from development partners including the German Government, before its network was destroyed during the civil war of 1989–2003; it was rebuilt from 2006 under the administration of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as part of a broader effort to restore the country’s public institutions. LINA is housed on the premises of the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism, and the State Media Monitor review describes it as functioning, in practice, more as a public-relations arm of the executive than as an independent journalistic institution.

Today, the agency primarily operates as a government mouthpiece, republishing press releases, ministerial statements, and presidential communiqués. Its reach and influence remain limited, especially compared to commercial outlets and digital-native media.

Media assets

News agency: LINA

Ownership and governance

LINA is a state agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT). The agency’s board, chief executive and senior management are appointed through executive processes without competitive selection or independent vetting, and that no changes were made during 2025 to improve its institutional autonomy. The structural arrangement is closer to that of a government department than an independent media institution: LINA is located on the Ministry of Information premises, depends on the ministry for its budget, and its dispatches are circulated through the ministry’s communication channels.

The change of government following the November 2023 election brought a leadership reshuffle and a small procedural change. The previous head, Kwame Oldpa Weeks, had been appointed under the Weah administration, and the new MICAT leadership publicly disputed both the manner of his appointment and his post-departure conduct: in March 2024 Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah ordered him to return LINA’s social-media access to the ministry, warning of legal action. In May 2024 the ministry announced A. Atrokon Tarr, also rendered A. Trokon Tarr in some reports, as the new head of LINA, with Wilfred Saay Gonto as Assistant Director for Editorial Services. The minister framed the appointment as a return to ministry-led procedures after the previous administration’s irregular appointment practice, correcting the channel of executive control without altering the agency’s underlying lines of authority. Tarr, an experienced journalist tasked with revitalising LINA, has continued in the role through 2025 and into 2026, representing Liberia at the 9th Executive Council of the Federation of African Press Agencies (FAAPA) in Marrakech in January 2026.

Source of funding and budget

LINA is reliant on government funding channelled through MICAT, and no meaningful commercial, subscription or syndication revenue was identified in this review. The State Media Monitor baseline identified US$423,000 for the 2020–2021 fiscal year as the most recent disaggregated public LINA budget figure, drawn from Liberian government budget documents; LINA’s allocation has not been reported as a separate line item in subsequent national-budget summaries.

More recent reporting paints a more complicated picture. A December 2025 investigation by The Liberian Investigator found that the agency received more than US$706,000 across the 2024 and 2025 national budgets, yet was “nearing collapse,” with staff describing the newsroom as “nonfunctional” and citing a lack of laptops, internet, transport and an effective website; the report estimated the cost of repairing the LINA website at under US$3,500 and noted that a decade-long push for the agency’s autonomy remained stalled at the Legislature, leaving LINA fully dependent on MICAT for financial decisions. The Investigator’s fact-check also reported that LINA’s first allocation in the National Budget was in 2023, raising questions about the institutional accounting of earlier allocations that should be checked against the official budget books. No public audit or oversight report specific to LINA was identified in this review.

Editorial independence

LINA’s editorial role is institutionally framed as a communications vehicle for the government of Liberia: the agency’s own institutional history describes it as part of the government information arm, created to mobilise citizens for nation-building, development, unity and integration, and its current output is principally devoted to the government’s development agenda. The State Media Monitor review finds no statutory mechanism or independent oversight body charged with safeguarding LINA’s editorial output, and notes that the combination of ministry housing, ministry funding and ministry-led appointment leaves the agency with effectively no operational distance from the executive. Media observers and former employees cited in the SMM review have alleged that internal editorial guidance discourages coverage that reflects negatively on government ministries or officials, though no formal documentation such as leaked memos or editorial policy manuals has been independently verified.

These conditions place LINA firmly in the State-Controlled (SC) category, alongside the Liberia Broadcasting System. The agency is housed inside a government ministry, wholly state-funded with no commercial-revenue base, headed by a ministerially appointed official, and operating under a mandate to publicise government activity, the conditions of direct state control rather than arms-length public service or commercial capture. The classification is unchanged from 2022. The 2024 change of government produced a leadership reshuffle and a procedural realignment of how the head of LINA is appointed, but the SMM June 2025 review notes that no structural reforms were introduced to improve the agency’s institutional autonomy, and no independent funding base, board structure or editorial safeguard has emerged. The SC classification continues to apply for 2026.

AI and digital policy

No LINA-specific published policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure, or content-provenance standards such as C2PA was identified. The agency maintains a current website at lina.micat.gov.lr and dispatches its wire content through the MICAT communication system, but no sector-specific framework governing AI-generated or synthetic news content in Liberia’s state media was identified.

May 2026