Published: 11:00 AM, 22 February 2025
Press freedom on the decline
Palestinian journalists attend a memorial for colleague Mohammed Soboh, who was killed with two other reporters in an airstrike by Israel in Gaza City in 2023. -Reuters
Freedom of the press has been thrust back into the spotlight after the White House barred the news agency Associated Press from attending presidential news conferences.
It's one of many prominent actions taken by the second Trump administration against the press, coming as the State Department confirmed it would cancel existing press subscriptions, and the culling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) which funded independent media initiatives in countries without a free press.
But while the US government's relationship with the press and press freedom is increasingly
fraught, the reality is that few nations are considered "good" at maintaining a safe and independent environment for the media to operate.
What is press freedom?
"Press freedom is not easily defined, and it's actually quite a contested concept, a contested idea," John Steel, a journalism researcher at the University of Derby, UK, told DW. "It is historically about having a public voice, allowing access to systems of power and making sure that democracies allow the public to have access to the decision-making process."
19th-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham described this as "security against misrule", the idea that a free press exists to hold power - usually governments, but also private entities - accountable in the eyes of the people.
Journalism-focused civil society groups have their own expectations of press freedom.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, Reporters Without Borders) says it is "the ability of journalists as individuals and collectives to select, produce, and disseminate news in the public interest independent of political, economic, legal, and social interference and in the absence of threats to their physical and mental safety."
Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) echoed that sentiment.
"Press freedom should be the access to an independent and pluralistic media [with] people able to report freely the news and information that's happening in their communities and their countries," Ginsberg told DW.
In effect, independent media should be free from external influence, such as pressure from a government to report a particular version of the news. "Pluralistic" media means choice - the availability of many independent and credible media sources from which a person can get information.
RSF's annually published Press Freedom Index monitors abuses against journalists and the political, legal, economic, sociocultural and safety frameworks they operate in.
In 2024, it found press freedom dropped globally compared to 2023 levels, with only eight nations - predominantly in northern Europe - being considered to have a "good" press freedom situation.
But even the world-leading Nordic nations aren't perfect.
"No country is immune to pressures against journalists and we always need to stay vigilant and focused," Ena Bavcic, an advocacy officer at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told DW.
What threatens press freedom?
Threats of physical violence aren't the only pressures facing journalists.
In the first six months of 2024, 12% of attacks against the press in EU member and candidate states were physical. A quarter were due to censorship, and a third to verbal attacks, including intimidation and threats, according to a Media Freedom and Rapid Response report.
Online attacks are also prominent.
"We've seen actually a rise in online types of attacks and pressures: a lot of spoofing, smear campaigns," Bavcic said.
"Depending on the group of journalists that are targets, for example women, these are usually threats that combine some sort of hate speech and pressures against their family members."
In the US, data from the non-partisan Freedom of the Press Foundation showed 2024 had the third-most attacks on the press reported since 2017.
2024 was a record year for journalist deaths globally
Journalists reporting from conflict zones are at high risk.
2024 was a record year for journalist deaths, which have steadily increased since 2021, according to CPJ data.
"Last year we saw a 22% increase in killings on 2023 and that was largely driven by the Israel-Gaza war, which in 2024 accounted for 85 of the journalists and media workers deaths," said Ginsberg. "All of those deaths were at the hands of the Israeli military. Most of those killed were Palestinians."
In conflict zones, journalists are civilians and are not legitimate targets.
"It's really vital that those engaged in conflict recognize that, and that those countries who promote and support press freedom hold their peers accountable for failing to protect journalists," Ginsberg said.
Journalist imprisonments have trended upward since 2000.
The CPJ found 361 journalists were imprisoned at the start of December 2024. China, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Myanmar, Belarus and Russia account for more than half of all known journalist imprisonments. Most jailed journalists are charged with anti-state violations.
>>DW
