Freedom of the press has been thrust back into the spotlight after the White House 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 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 , 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, , 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 , 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.
US president considers press the enemy
Deterioration of political protections for journalist safety and rising reports of threat-making that causes journalists to self-censor or avoid public interest reporting and investigations are occurring all around the world.
“Attacks on journalists, smearing campaigns against journalists have created a chilling effect where there is just a much smaller number of journalists who can continue to report independently,” said Ginsberg.
This makes it hard to detect even small improvements in press freedom. While deaths and arrests may decline, it may also be due to the coercive impacts of real or implied threats to press safety.
Such chilling effects have been seen recently in the US.
Donald Trump’s long-running acrimony towards traditional media is no secret. He previously described the press as the and at a 2024 campaign rally gestured to the press pack and said he wouldn’t “mind… so much” if a would-be assassin had to shoot through them to reach him (Trump was the victim of two prior assassination attempts).
But the president has also flexed his muscle through legal actions against journalists and the press, with multiple lawsuits against media companies.
Ginsberg said these actions combined with his ban on the Associated Press for its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America were having a profound effect “where news agencies and organizations will choose not to cover certain things rather than risk being punished.”
What can be done to protect press freedom?
Autocrats will also suppress free and independent press to restrict the flow of information, Ginsberg said.
“Freedom of information, of which press freedom is clearly a part, is [essential] to our freedoms and ,” she said.
Protecting press freedom may require legal and regulatory safeguards. The EU, for instance, as a step towards protecting media rights.
Bavcic described EMFA as a “good basis” for protecting journalist rights, but cautioned that it needs to be implemented by member states, including those with problematic histories of press freedom.
“EMFA can’t cover everything, all types of issues that journalists are facing. There needs to be a really good implementation on the ground, there needs to be strong institutions,” Bavcic said.
Self-regulation, where journalists and media companies adhere to agreed journalistic principles and ethical conduct, could also help to build back trust in the institution, Steel said. A public that sees value in having independent and free media can add a layer of protection to those in the field.
“There are no theoretical or philosophical or even historical accounts of freedom that don’t come with some provisos,” Steel said. “In a sense, [the press] needs to adhere to certain parameters to allow it to actualize, to actually become meaningful. And that’s why journalists talk about ethics and ethical codes and adhering to standards, because it allows them to have the space to be judged fairly and equally.”
Edited by: Carla Bleiker
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