Regulatory authorities
Amidst the armed and political division in Libya, institutions are also divided, some were relocated while new ones are established to rival the opposition and take over the governmental functions in both areas in the East and West of the country. This environment made it hard for any regulation to take place, as each of the authorities in the different parts of the country have their own set of rules and interests which they protect and pursue. The Ministry of Information has no strong registration or licensing process in place and also there are no adequate policies or laws to regulate media. And Libya is in dire need for a fund to source a monitoring process.
In Libyan media there is no self-regulating system, nor an accepted Code of Ethics, despite the many attempts among media officials and experts to draft some sort of core guidelines for journalists and institutions to follow. There is no protection for journalists or media institutions, even though the main Press Board has an office that monitors and records violations against journalists, namely the Bureau of Monitoring of Violations and Defending Journalists. The bureau issued a full report for 2017 showing vague statistics of numbers of violations and threats targeting media outlets and personnel, but they have no interest in pursuing the perpetrators, and there are no laws in place to provide the legal coverage and protection.
This includes the foreign media authorities that act as security apparatus rather than a managing and facilitating body for foreign press to come to Libya to cover news. The process to obtain journalistic visa has been made much harder, to deter journalists and researchers from coming, and this has led freelancers and may journalists to risk their lives by coming on business or other kinds of visa obtained through the black-market. Sometimes this leads to being under threat of attack from militias and security groups allied with the governments, and in many cases the journalists were reported by the foreign media office to these militias.