*From Freedom House
Key findings
- Media freedom has been deteriorating worldwide over the past decade.
- In some of the world's most influential democracies, populist leaders have overseen concerted efforts to stifle media sector independence.
- While threats to global media freedom are real and worrisome in their own right, their impact on the state of democracy is what makes them truly dangerous.
- However, experience has shown that freedom of the press can retreat from the long tracks of repression when given the opportunity. The fundamental desire for democratic freedoms, including access to honest and factual journalism, can never be extinguished.
The fundamental right to seek and disseminate information through an independent press is under attack, and part of the attack has come from an unexpected source. Elected leaders in many democracies, who should be the staunchest defenders of press freedom, have made clear efforts to silence the voices of critical media outlets and strengthen venues that serve favorable coverage. The trend is linked to a global decline in democracy itself: The erosion of press freedom is both a symptom and a contributor to the destruction of other democratic institutions and principles, a fact that makes it particularly alarming.
According to Freedom House's World Freedom data, media freedom has been deteriorating worldwide over the past decade, with new forms of oppression taking hold in open societies and authoritarian states. The trend is sharpest in Europe, formerly a bastion of well-established freedoms, and in Eurasia and the Middle East, where many of the world's largest dictatorships are centered. If democratic powers stop supporting media independence at home and do not impose consequences for limiting it abroad, the body of the free press may be in danger of virtual extinction.
Experience has shown, however, that freedom of the press can retreat from long trails of repression when given the opportunity. The fundamental desire for democratic freedoms, including access to honest and factual journalism, can never be extinguished and it is never too late to renew the demand that these rights be granted in full.
Media situation in the Balkans
in Freedom House report each country is evaluated with points ranging from 0, which indicates the lowest level of freedom, to number 4, which expresses the highest level of media freedom. Based on this assessment, the Balkan countries are found to be between a medium assessment, as far as media freedom is concerned. Among them, Albania received 2 points, Bulgaria 3 points, Croatia 3 points, Romania 3 points, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2 points, Kosovo 2 points, North Macedonia 2 points, Montenegro 2 points and Serbia 2 points. In a graphical view the severity would be like this:
Attacks on press freedom in democracies
In some of the world's most influential democracies, large segments of the population are no longer receiving unbiased news and information. This is not because journalists are being thrown in jail, as can happen in authoritarian environments. Instead, the media have fallen prey to more nuanced efforts to curtail their independence. Common methods include government-backed ownership changes, regulatory and financial pressure, and public denunciations by honest journalists. Governments have also provided proactive friendly support through measures such as lucrative government contracts, favorable regulatory rulings and preferential access to government information. The goal is for the press to serve those in power and not the public.
The problem has arisen alongside right-wing populism, which has undermined basic freedoms in many democratic countries. Populist leaders present themselves as defenders of an aggrieved majority against liberal elites and ethnic minorities whose loyalties they question and argue that the nation's interests – as they define it – must override democratic principles such as freedom of the press, transparency and open debate.
Among the free countries in Freedom House's World Freedom report, 19 percent (16 countries) have experienced a reduction in press freedom scores over the past five years. This is consistent with a key finding of Freedom in the World – that democracies in general are experiencing a decline in political rights and civil liberties. It has become painful that a free press can never be taken for granted, even when democratic rule has been established for decades.
Viktor Orban's government in Hungary and Aleksandar Vučić's administration in Serbia have had great success in crowding out critical journalism, blazing a trail for populist forces elsewhere. Both leaders have consolidated media ownership in the hands of their cronies, ensuring the broadest branches support the government and smear opponents. In Hungary, where the process has progressed much further, nearly 80 percent of the media is owned by government allies.
The cultivation of government media is spreading to neighboring countries. The leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, until recently part of that country's ruling coalition, was caught on video trying to team up with Russians to buy the country's biggest newspaper and spread its biased coverage. partisan. Declines related to economic manipulation of media, including cases where the government directs advertising to friendly outlets or encourages business allies to buy critical ones, were more common across Europe over the past five years than in other parts of the world. Such influence and interference tactics are a relatively recent phenomenon on the continent, which has generally shown strong support for press freedom since the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago.
In Israel, one of the few democracies in the Middle East, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rebuffed investigative reporters and now faces corruption charges for offering regulatory favors to two major media firms in exchange for positive coverage. Although Netanyahu has resisted efforts to indict and try him on these charges, evidence suggests the prime minister was willing to sacrifice press freedom to maintain political power. Many voters apparently accepted this setback in the April 2019 elections, putting the Netanyahu Party and its allies in a position to form a new governing coalition.
India, the world's most populous democracy, is also sending signals that holding government accountable is not part of the press's responsibility. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has backed campaigns to discourage speech that is "anti-national", and government-run thugs have raided the homes and offices of critical journalists. The media has thrown much shade at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won reelection last month, amid accusations that the government issues directives on how the press should cover his activities and intimidates journalists into leaving. The government has also been selective in allocating television licenses, effectively excluding unfriendly outlets from the airwaves.
In the most disturbing developments of recent years, press freedom has come under unusual pressure in the United States, the world's leading democratic power. Although key news organizations remain strong and continue to provide robust reporting on incumbents, President Donald Trump's continued pressure on the press has seriously exacerbated an ongoing erosion of public trust in the mainstream media. Among other steps, the president has repeatedly threatened to strengthen defamation laws, revoke the licenses of certain broadcasters and harm other business interests of media owners. The US Constitution provides strong protections against such actions, but President Trump's public stance on press freedom has had a tangible impact on the global landscape. Journalists around the world now have less reason to believe that Washington will come to the rescue if their basic rights are violated.
Fueling a global downturn
The breakdown of world press freedom is closely linked to the broader decline of democracy that Freedom House has been tracking for the past 13 years. Although the press is not always the first institution to attack when a country's leadership takes an anti-democratic turn, the repression of free media is a strong indicator that other political rights and civil liberties are at risk. Attacks on media independence are often linked to power grabs by new or existing leaders, or to entrenched regime efforts to suppress perceived threats to their control.
Over the past five years, countries already designated as unfree in Freedom House's World Freedom Report were also the most likely to experience a decline in press freedom scores, with 28 percent of countries cheap that experience such a decline. Partially free countries are almost equally likely to experience a gain as a decline in press freedom, reflecting the volatility of these middle performers and the complex forces influencing their trajectory. The deteriorating regime of free countries, combined with the negative trend among free countries, has fueled the overall decline in world press freedom.
While populist leaders in democracies try to secure and increase their profits by taming the press, established autocratic governments continue to tighten the screws on dissident voices, as any breach in their media dominance threatens to highlight official or private misdeeds. rejects official confessions. In Russia in 2018, authorities moved to block the popular messaging app Telegram after the company refused to hand over its encryption keys to security officials. The government in Cameroon has shut down internet service in the Anglophone region for much of the past year, a backlash to protests and an uprising stemming from long-standing discrimination against the large English minority. In Myanmar, two Reuters journalists were sentenced to seven years in prison after a mistrial in which the court ignored clear evidence that they had been captured to stop their investigations into military atrocities against the Rohingya minority; although they had recently been forgiven, they were not freed.
The decline in different countries can be attributed to a variety of legal, political and economic factors, but some of them stand out as the most troubling and widespread. Violence and harassment targeting journalists and particular media played a role in 63 percent of countries with a decrease in their press freedom score over the past five years. The 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi was the most high-profile recent case, but it was hardly unique. Journalists in El Salvador received death threats in 2015 after uncovering stories of police abuse and extrajudicial killings. A Malian journalist who exposed rampant political corruption was shot in the chest in 2017. That same year a Tanzanian journalist who investigated the murders of local officials disappeared and his fate remains a mystery.
Trends in press freedom vary by region. Since 2014, there has been no net change in the average press freedom score for the Americas or Asia Pacific, and sub-Saharan Africa has seen a slight increase of 3 percent. But average scores in the world's two freest regions, Eurasia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), fell by 9 percent and 11 percent respectively, while press freedom in Europe, where four out of every five countries are payment-fell by 8 percent.
In Eurasia and MENA, media in the past year have faced intensification of traditional challenges. Examples include new legislative restrictions in Belarus, further arrests and convictions in Lebanon, and higher insecurity and deaths in war-torn Yemen. These developments illustrate the ways in which already difficult environments can grow steadily worse in the absence of meaningful international support for media independence and other fundamental rights.
Even in regions where average scores were more stable, press freedom is under threat in individual countries. A new privacy law in Nepal restricts the collection of personal information of any individual, including public officials, using legitimate privacy concerns to suppress media coverage of political leaders' conflicts of interest or corruption. In Pakistan, security agents allegedly warned journalists against covering taboo subjects, such as abuses by the military, or gave journalists instructions on how to cover specific political issues. The regime in China has worked to close the last remaining avenues to access unsolicited information by increasing pressure on private tech companies to police the content on their platforms more firmly.
Guiding lights in the dark
The picture of world press freedom is not entirely bleak. The most encouraging examples of democratic progress over the past two years – Ethiopia, Malaysia, Armenia, Ecuador and Gambia – have almost all had parallel gains in their media environments. Among these five countries, only Armenia failed to register an improvement in its press freedom score in the same year as its initial political opening in Freedom in the World. This correlation once again underscores the close relationship between media freedom and political change: Just as anti-democratic rule often involves attacks on independent media, a reformist leadership is defined in part by its willingness to accept criticism from a free press. And just as restrictions on media freedom often precede the erosion of other rights, the removal of such restrictions facilitates and catalyzes further democratic advances.
Improvements in these countries also point to the resilience of independent journalism, even after years of repression. In Malaysia and Ecuador, the removal of political pressure on the media allowed independent media to withdraw from censorship and previously promised to produce less dignified coverage. In Ethiopia, branches that had been operating abroad were able to return to the country. In The Gambia, persecuted journalists returned from exile and more locals have decided to enter the profession.
Media freedom can recover much more quickly after a period of authoritarian rule than some other elements of democracy, such as the rule of law. But it is also subject to rapid change. The Arab Spring offers a cautionary tale. In the immediate aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya reported improvements in press freedom in Freedom in the World. That everyone has faced obstacles. Like democracy itself, freedom of the press is not an end state that remains secure once achieved – it must be nurtured and defended against the forces that oppose it.
Media and democracy
While threats to global media freedom are real and worrisome in their own right, their impact on the state of democracy is what makes them truly dangerous. A free and independent media sector that can keep the population informed and hold leaders to account is crucial to a strong and sustainable democracy such as free and fair elections. Without it, citizens cannot make informed decisions about how to govern themselves, and the abuse of power, which is all but inevitable in every society, cannot be exposed and corrected.
A review of some of the countries that have encountered potential tipping points in the past year illustrates how the media's ability to support democracy depends on their freedom to act independently.
Journalists played a key role in the ouster of authoritarian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria in April 2019, not only reporting on anti-government protests but also organizing their own demonstrations when mainstream news outlets failed to give adequate attention to the movement. popular. However, the frequent arrests of critical journalists that occurred under Bouteflika have continued since his resignation, an indication that the unfolding leadership transition may be less revolutionary than many had hoped.
Before the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, left office, also in April, the population was accustomed to news outlets in the country that did not provide impartial and material information. Citizen and outlet journalists based in exile filled the gap, distributing news and images primarily via the Internet. As frustration with Al-Bashir's wrongdoing grew throughout the winter and he perceived the scale of the threat to his power, his regime cracked down, arresting journalists covering mass protests and revoking the credentials of some foreign journalists. As in Algeria, journalists organized their own protests. Military commanders tried to reassure the public after Al-Bashir's arrest, announcing an end to media censorship and tacitly acknowledging that a perceived freedom of the press would help consolidate their control. But journalists are skeptical of such statements from the junta and have joined other protesters in demanding a transfer of power to civilian leaders who can oversee a genuine democratic opening.
In Venezuela, media repression has increased since the opposition-controlled National Assembly installed Juan Guaido as acting president in January. Combined with repeated blackouts, this pressure from Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian regime has severely hampered media efforts in the country to inform the public about political events and the ongoing humanitarian crisis. But a number of resilient journalists have continued to spread the news through social media, the Internet and international partners. A reporting group has developed technology to record low-bandwidth video on mobile devices and then automatically delete it after transfer to a secure server, reducing the risk of retaliation against journalists who are detained and searched. The ability of journalists to document the activities of the opposition as well as the brutality of the regime's response has helped to foster international support for the democracy movement.
To address the information gap on the ground in Venezuela, some media outlets have established direct relationships with subsets of the population. Journalists go into communities that have had limited access to objective news under Maduro and report on local events. This fosters public confidence and makes residents more open to more unbiased news. Despite these valiant efforts, however, producing credible and objective news that is accessible to Venezuelans remains a formidable challenge.
Armenia has made much more progress in its democratic transition over the past year, with protests leading to new elections and a new reformist government. As in Sudan, most TV channels initially avoided covering mass demonstrations. But a small contingent of independent outlets, including Civilnet and Azatutyun, were able to provide consistent reporting, including live streams and skillful use of social media. The flow of information helped the popular movement gain momentum, increasing pressure on establishment forces and legitimizing the emerging new leadership. These outlets also helped curb disinformation spread by the previous regime.
There is an obvious tension between journalists who are trying to perform their proper democratic function and anti-democratic regimes which are determined to maintain power. The innovative and courageous work of independent journalists offers hope that even in the most desperate circumstances, those committed to disseminating information in the public interest can find a way. But these journalists alone cannot address the needs of billions of people who still have access to little more than their government's narrative and must rely on their instincts and observations to evaluate the claims of corrupt and abusive leaders.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following recommendations for policymakers in democratic countries will help ensure the sustainability of independent media around the world:
- Ensure that their actions do not justify or inspire violations of press freedom. Democratic nations have a particularly important role to play in maintaining media freedom. Words matter, and when U.S. officials violently attack the press or fail to swiftly and forcefully condemn acts of repression such as Khashoggi's murder, it sends a signal to undemocratic leaders around the world that attacks on the press and crimes against journalists are permissible. .
- Take strong and immediate action against any violation of media freedom globally through press releases, phone calls, meetings, letters and imposing targeted sanctions on perpetrators. This includes speaking out against violence against journalists and the authorities' failure to identify and prosecute attackers, restrictions on media access, blocking of websites and censorship on specific topics.
- Stand up publicly for the value of a free press and support civic education that will inform the next generation. Freedom of the press is one of the most fundamental pillars of American democracy, and constitutional protections in the United States are stronger than in any other country in the world. Citizens can easily forget this amid the media frenzy and inflammatory comments. Political leaders and teachers need to reiterate the extent to which we all benefit from professional journalists holding those in power to account.
- Ensure that foreign policy and aid prioritize support for democratic principles, including media freedom, as the foundation of national security and economic prosperity. The purpose of foreign assistance is to bring host countries to the point where they no longer need it. In this sense, it is short-sighted for donor governments to invest funds abroad without relying on press freedom. National security and economic prosperity are stronger in countries where democratic rights are protected and a free press is a key watchdog of democracy. Foreign aid specifically focused on strengthening independent media, providing technical training and emergency assistance, is especially needed given the threats journalists currently face. Countries that have experienced recent expansions in press freedom, such as Angola, Ethiopia, Malaysia and Ecuador, are particularly vulnerable to backsliding and require special focus.
- Support social media as an alternative outlet for free expression in oppressive environments. Innovative alternatives to state-controlled media often prevail in social media, including recently in Venezuela, Armenia and Sudan. Similar technology can be used to bypass censorship and keep journalists anonymous when necessary. Donor agencies should provide funding for technology that enhances journalistic freedom.
*Citizens Channel /EK/
