Sea of red indicates the parlous state of press freedom in the world. Credit: Reporters Without Borders

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, May 2 2025 (IPS)

Global press freedom across the world is at a “critical moment,” campaigners have warned, as a major index mapping the state of global press freedom hits an unprecedented low.

In the latest edition of the annual press freedom index produced by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which was published on May 2, the average score of all assessed countries fell below 55 points, falling into the category of a “difficult situation” for the first time in the index’s history.

More than six out of ten countries (112 in total) saw their overall scores decline in the index, while the conditions for practicing journalism are for the first time classified as poor in half of the world’s countries and satisfactory in fewer than one in four.

In 42 countries—harboring over half of the world’s population (56.7 percent)—the situation is “very serious,” according to the group. In these zones, press freedom is entirely absent and practicing journalism is particularly dangerous.

RSF says that while there has been a downward trend in press freedom globally for some time, the latest index scores are a distressing “new low.”

“Our index has been warning of this for the last ten years—the trajectory for press freedom has been a downward one—but this is a new low. Sixty percent of countries saw their scores [in the index] drop last year and the environment for media freedom globally has worsened. We are now at a critical moment for press freedom globally,” Fiona O’Brien, UK Bureau Director for RSF, told IPS.

Experts and campaigners have in recent years warned of growing threats to press freedom amid a rise of authoritarian regimes looking to muzzle dissent, as well as  growing economic pressures affecting the ability of independent media outlets to function.

RSF’s index is compiled using measurements of five different indicators—political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context, and safety—to form an overall score. It says that this year the overall global index score was dragged down by the performance of the economic index.

It says that economic pressure is an often underestimated but major factor seriously weakening media in many countries. This pressure is being largely driven by ownership concentration, pressure from advertisers and financial backers, and public aid that is restricted, absent, or allocated non-transparently.

The group warns this is leaving many media trapped between preserving their editorial independence and ensuring their economic survival.

“The pressure on media sustainability is as bad as it has ever been,” said O’Brien.

The effects of this economic pressure have been severe. Data collected for the index indicates that in 160 out of the 180 countries assessed (88.9 percent), media outlets achieve financial stability “with difficulty” or “not at all.” Meanwhile, news outlets are shutting down due to economic hardship in nearly a third of countries globally.

While the struggles of media economies in some countries have been exacerbated by political instability, general lack of resources, and war, media in other rich, ostensibly more stable countries are also facing significant economic pressures.

RSF points out that in the US, a majority of journalists and media experts told the group that “the average media outlet struggles for economic viability.”

Meanwhile, independent media that rely heavily or exclusively on foreign funding have come under increasing pressure.

A freeze on funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which halted US international aid earlier this year plunged hundreds of news outlets in different countries around the world into economic uncertainty or forced others to close.

This was particularly acute in Ukraine, where nine out of ten outlets receive international aid and USAID is the primary donor.

“The US cuts have had a profound effect there,” Jeanne Cavalier, head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, told IPS. “Independent media is vital in any country that is at war. It’s a real blow to press freedom in the country,” she said.

She added, though, that the cuts to US funding were “an existential threat to press freedom in all countries with authoritarian governments under Russian influence,” highlighting that exiled media in particular provide a vital service to people living under such regimes.

The Meduza news outlet is one of the most prominent exiled Russian media organizations. While more than half of its financing comes through crowdfunding, until earlier this year a part of its funding came via US grants.

The group said that the combined impact of the cut and previous financial problems presented a significant challenge to its operations. It was forced to cut its workforce by 15 percent and salaries were reduced.

Speaking to IPS at the time, Katerina Abramova, Head of Communications at Meduza, said the moves would “influence the diversity of our content.” But speaking this week after the release of RSF’s index, she said the group had managed to continue its work but admitted, “it is even more challenging now.”

“Our main goal is to maintain the quality of our reporting and to keep delivering news inside Russia,” she said.

However, she said she was concerned for the future of other organizations like Meduza as press freedom and the economic health of independent media wane globally.

“I hope that there will not be a complete loss of independent reporting on countries where free speech has become illegal. But I know that many independent newsrooms are suffering and are on the edge of closing. When you are in exile, you are in a vulnerable position, so such newsrooms face the most difficult challenges,” she told IPS.

“I am also worried that the USAID cuts may be seen as a ‘good sign’ for many authoritarian regimes around the world. They might say, ‘look, the USA also doesn’t like journalists anymore.’ It would be like a validation of what they are doing to independent media [in their own countries],” she added.

Meanwhile, other organizations have also raised the alarm over growing threats to press freedom, even in countries regarded as among the strongest democracies in the world.

While in the RSF index the European Union (EU)-Balkans zone had the highest overall score globally, and its gap with the rest of the world continued to grow, a report released this week by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) group highlighted how some EU governments were attacking press freedom and undermining independent media.

The report, based on the work of 43 human rights groups from 21 countries, warned that press freedom was being eroded across the bloc. It said EU media markets “feature high media ownership concentration, with these owners remaining obscured behind inadequate ownership transparency obligations, the continued erosion of public service media’s independence, ongoing threats and intimidation against journalists, and restrictions on freedom of expression and access to information.”

“The findings of this report should put EU officials on high alert: media freedom and pluralism are under attack across the EU, and in some cases they are in an existential battle against overtly undemocratic governments,” according to the group.

Liberties also warned that “EU legislation to bolster media freedom is being greeted with hostility, making enforcement efforts in 2025 and beyond decisive in protecting the free and plural media that European democracy depends on.”

However, it is this legislation, including the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which is designed to guarantee the protection of journalists and sources, independence of regulatory bodies and full ownership transparency, and the Anti-SLAPP Directive (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) to protect journalists and human rights advocates from abusive legal proceedings, that experts see as providing hope that some of the threats to media freedom can be dealt with.

“At the individual country level within the EU, there are some problems. Where there has been a recent change in government away from authoritarianism, there has been some positive progress, e.g., in Poland. But in other countries, like Slovakia, we are seeing the reverse,” Eva Simon, Senior Advocacy Officer at Liberties, told IPS.

“But at the EU level, we see positive prospects for media freedom in new legislation. The EU Media Act is coming into force soon and the anti-SLAPP directive will come into effect next year.

“The EU has the power to intervene in countries where there are persistent problems and we have high hopes that the EU will use its powers to enforce the European Media Freedom Act. The EU has more tools than ever at its disposal to ensure media freedom in member states,” she added.

On April 30, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) issued a damning report on how, since the start of US President Donald Trump’s second term in January, press freedom has come under attack.

The report warned that press freedom is no longer a given in the United States as journalists and newsrooms face mounting pressures that threaten both their ability to report freely and the public’s right to know.

It said the executive branch of the government was taking “unprecedented steps to permanently undermine press freedom” through restricting access for some news organizations, increasingly using government and regulatory bodies against media, and launching targeted attacks on journalists and newsrooms.

In a statement, CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said, “This is a definitive moment for U.S. media and the public’s right to be informed. Whether at the federal or state level, the investigations, hearings, and verbal attacks amount to an environment where the media’s ability to bear witness to government action is already curtailed.”

The current threats to press freedom in the US are among the most worrying anywhere, many media experts say.

“There is a head-on attack on media freedom in the US. If you look at the scores for the US [in the index], the social indicator has dropped hugely, which shows that within the US the press is operating in a hostile environment. The economic situation there has deteriorated too, which makes things difficult for them,” said O’Brien.

“But also, a lot of people look to America as a bastion of press freedom, with its constitution’s First Amendment, and what is happening there to independent media is an absolute gift to authoritarian rulers around the world. If the rest of the world just sits back and watches this and lets press freedom be restricted and attacked and does nothing, other regimes will look and just think, ‘oh, it’s OK to do this.'”

“World leaders have to now stand up for press freedom. Independent journalism is fundamental to democratic societies,” she added.

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By External Source
May 2 2025 (IPS-Partners)

 
Freedom of the press is facing growing threats across the world.

Authoritarian regimes still imprison, silence, and kill journalists.

But today, elected governments are doing the same.

In 2024, over 550 journalists were imprisoned worldwide. 124 of them in China alone.

Since October 2023, at least 155 journalists have been killed in Gaza, Lebanon, and Israel.

Many were clearly identifiable as journalists – and targeted.

Sudan has become a death trap for reporters caught in civil war.

In Pakistan, Mexico and Bangladesh journalists were assassinated for their work.

Independent media face financial and political attacks.

This year, the U.S. gutted funding for Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia.

Autocratic leaders applauded.

Meanwhile, trust in traditional media is collapsing.

In the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, China scored 75% trust in media. The UK scored 36%.

Yet China ranks 172nd out of 180 on the Press Freedom Index.

AI is adding new risks: Amplifying disinformation, censorship, and surveillance.

Recent studies show 51% of AI-generated news responses have major factual issues.

Misinformation spreads faster and easier than ever.

UNESCO warns that AI, without safeguards, could crush free expression.

This year, World Press Freedom Day focuses on “Reporting in the Brave New World: The Impact of
Artificial Intelligence on Press Freedom and the Media.”

AI offers powerful new tools for journalism – but without ethical safeguards, it threatens press freedom itself.

And without journalism, democracy stands on shifting sand.

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By Farhana Haque Rahman
NEW YORK, May 2 2025 (IPS)

Pressures on the press are piling up. Like an avalanche gaining speed yet unnoticed by most people in the valley below, freedom of the press is being relentlessly trampled over – despite the valiant efforts of a few.

Farhana Haque Rahman

On top of all this, marking World Press Freedom Day on May 3, UNESCO is aiming this year to focus thoughts on what it diplomatically calls the substantial ‘new risks’ as well as the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI), already widely deployed in newsrooms, and by fraudsters.

For incisive information on journalists targeted worldwide, organizations like Reporters Without Borders (RSF) not only collate the data and keep detailed records but also campaign on our behalf, as in lobbying the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes against journalists in Palestine.

In its 2024 roundup, RSF notes: “In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible… In 2024, Gaza became the most dangerous region in the world for journalists, a place where journalism itself is threatened with extinction.”

RSF counts over 155 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza and Lebanon and two killed in Israel since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023. This number includes at least 35 who were “very likely” targeted or killed while working, many clearly identifiable as journalists but shot or killed in Israeli strikes. “This was compounded by a deliberate media blackout and a block on foreign journalists entering the Strip.”

Sudan is described as a “death trap” for journalists caught between military and paramilitary factions. And outside war zones, seven journalists were killed in Pakistan in 2024, five assassinated in Mexico, and five killed in a violent crackdown on the July/August 2024 protests in Bangladesh.

Of the 550 reporters behind bars around the world by the end of the year, 124 were in China (including 11 in Hong Kong), 61 in Myanmar, 41 in Israel and 40 in Belarus.

Of the 38 media professionals jailed in Russia, 18 are Ukrainian. RSF dedicated its report to Ukrainian freelance journalist Victoria Roshchyna, whose family were informed that she died in captivity in Russia on 19 September. No explanation was given.

Just last month (April), a Russian court sentenced four journalists to 5-1/2 years each in prison, accusing them of extremism for working for an anti-corruption group founded by opposition leader Alexei Navalny who died in captivity in February 2024.

What’s more, all these regimes are giving a thumbs-up to the March 15 gutting of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, as well as the dismantling of USAid which, for example, helped support independent journalists in Myanmar.

China applauded, calling VOA “a dirty rag” and “lie factory”. Cambodian strongman Hun Sen cheered the cuts of “fake news” RFA.

RFS says press freedom deteriorated in the Asia-Pacific region, where 26 of the 32 countries and territories saw their scores fall in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

“The region’s dictatorial governments have been tightening their hold over news and information with increasing vigour,” RFS said, while commending regional democracies, such as Timor-Leste, Samoa and Taiwan, for retaining “their roles as press freedom models”.

But what is perhaps most alarming about the insidious deterioration of press freedom around the world is that autocratic regimes are very successfully mastering the dark arts of propaganda, while mainstream traditional media in more open societies are losing people’s trust.

The 2025 Trust Barometer compiled by Edelman, a big American PR firm, found of the 28 major countries it surveyed that China ranked highest in the “trust of media” category with a 75 percent rating, while the UK came next to last with 36 percent. This contrasts with RSF’s press freedom index which ranks China 172 out of 180 countries and territories, and the UK 23rd.

Reflecting on 25 years of surveys and referring broadly to the West, CEO Richard Edelman said media became the “least trusted” institution in 2020 as “information became a bitter and contested battleground used to manipulate, drive societal wedges, and fuel political polarization”.

Which brings us to Unesco’s words of warning over the AI revolution on World Press Freedom Day.

Yes it enhances access to and processing of information, enables journalists to handle vast amounts of data efficiently and create content, improves fact checking etc.

But, the UN agency adds: “AI also… can be used to reproduce misinformation, spread disinformation, amplify online hate speech, and enable new forms of censorship. Some actors use AI for mass surveillance of journalists and citizens, creating a chilling effect on freedom of expression.”

AI-generated fake videos posted on social media, such as images of firefighters rescuing animals in the recent Los Angeles wildfires, have already gained tens of millions of clicks.

Recent BBC research into four publically available AI assistants found 51percent of all AI answers to questions about the news were judged to have significant issues of some form. This included 19 percent of AI answers which cited BBC content introduced factual errors, while 13 percent of the quotes sourced from BBC articles were either altered or didn’t actually exist in that article.

We have been warned. And that is before the boffins perhaps succeed in birthing Artificial General Intelligence with the goal of creating machines as intelligent and versatile as humans. The very concept then of Press Freedom may no longer exist.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

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Excerpt:

World Press Freedom Day 2025

Credit: Chris McGrath, Getty Images
The United Nations will be commemorating World Press Freedom Day on May 3 reminding governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and marking the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in Windhoek in 1991.

By Committee to Protect Journalists
NEW YORK, May 1 2025 (IPS)

Press freedom is no longer a given in the United States 100 days into President Donald Trump’s second term as journalists and newsrooms face mounting pressures that threaten their ability to report freely and the public’s right to know.

A new report released April 30 by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)– “Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy,” noted that the administration has scaled up its rhetorical attacks and launched a startling number of actions using regulatory bodies and powerful allies that, taken together, may cause irreparable harm to press freedom in the U.S. and will likely take decades to repair.

The level of trepidation among U.S. journalists is such that CPJ has provided more security training since the November election than at any other period.

“This is a definitive moment for U.S. media and the public’s right to be informed. CPJ is providing journalists with resources at record rates so they can report safely and without fear or favor, but we need everyone to understand that protecting the First Amendment is not a choice, it’s a necessity. All our freedoms depend on it,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.

Emerging challenges to a free press in the United States fall under three main categories:
1) The restriction of access for some news organizations; 2) The increasing use of government and regulatory bodies against news organizations; and 3) Targeted attacks against journalists and newsrooms.

While The Associated Press (AP), a global newswire agency serving thousands of newsrooms in the U.S. and across the world, has faced retaliation for not adhering to state-mandated language, the Federal Communications Commission is mounting investigations against three major broadcasters – CBS, ABC, and NBC – along with the country’s two public broadcasters – NPR and PBS – in moves widely viewed as politically motivated.

“The rising tide of threats facing U.S. journalists and newsrooms are a direct threat to the American public,” said Ginsberg. “Whether at the federal or state level, the investigations, hearings, and verbal attacks amount to an environment where the media’s ability to bear witness to government action is already curtailed.”

Journalists who reached out to CPJ in recent months are worried about online harassment and digital and physical safety. Newsrooms have also shared with us worries about the possibility of punitive regulatory actions.

Since the presidential election last November until March 7 of this year, CPJ has provided safety consultations to more than 530 journalists working in the country. This figure was only 20 in all of 2022, marking an exponential increase in the need for safety information.

Globally, the gutting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media resulted in the effective termination of thousands of journalist positions, and the elimination of USAID independent media support impoverished the news landscape in many regions across the globe where the news ecosystem is underdeveloped or information is severely restricted.

As the executive branch of the U.S. government is taking unprecedented steps to permanently undermine press freedom, CPJ is calling on the public, news organizations, civil society, and all branches, levels, and institutions of government – from municipalities to the U.S. Supreme Court – to safeguard press freedom to help secure the future of American democracy.

In particular, Congress must prioritize passage of the PRESS Act and The Free Speech Protection Act, both bipartisan bills that can strengthen and protect press freedom throughout the United States.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

World Press Freedom Day 2025