Eritrea ranked worst country for press freedom in Africa

 An index released this week marking World Press Freedom day warned that media freedom is under threat in more countries than ever before.Reporters Without Borders - who compiled the index - say the environment for journalism is 'bad' in seven out of ten countries. In Africa the situation is classified as 'bad' in nearly 40 percent of countries and the Sahel region in particular is said to be in the process of becoming a 'no-news zone'.

Right to Report: Press Freedom in Hong Kong

 

Journalists have been arrested and news organisations forced to close. We investigate the state of press freedom in Hong Kong.

One of Hong Kong’s most popular newspapers no longer exists; its founder sits behind bars. Some journalists are fleeing the city, afraid they could be next to see the inside of a prison cell.

Since the implementation of a national security law, dozens of journalists have been arrested and major news outlets forced to close.

Right to Report: Press Freedom in Hong Kong

 

Journalists have been arrested and news organisations forced to close. We investigate the state of press freedom in Hong Kong.

One of Hong Kong’s most popular newspapers no longer exists; its founder sits behind bars. Some journalists are fleeing the city, afraid they could be next to see the inside of a prison cell.

Since the implementation of a national security law, dozens of journalists have been arrested and major news outlets forced to close.

Tunisia: The referendum and the ramifications for the media

 

Tunisians have been among the freest to voice dissent in the Arab world but a constitutional change threatens that freedom. Plus, LGBTQphobia in Ghana’s media.

As Tunisia prepares to vote on a controversial new constitution, President Kais Saied’s continuing power grab risks reversing the country’s hard-won media freedoms.

Can independent media in the Philippines survive?

Press freedom continues to be under attack in the Philippines, human rights and media advocacy groups say. In June, Philippine authorities issued a shutdown order for Rappler, the award-winning news site run by Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa.

Known for its investigative reporting on corruption and former president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs”, Rappler has been accused of violating rules against foreign ownership of mass media. Ressa has vowed to keep the newsroom running.

Israeli police arrest Al Jazeera journalist in Sheikh Jarrah

 

Budeiri, a veteran journalist, was assaulted while being arrested and her team's equipment was destroyed. Israeli police arrest Al Jazeera journalist in Sheikh Jarrah

Who controls the media message on the Israel-Palestine conflict?

 

Israel condemned for air raid in Gaza that destroyed a tower housing media offices, including Al Jazeera’s.

Israel is being condemned for carrying out air raids on a building that housed the offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other international media in Gaza.

Staff and families living in apartments in al-Jalaa tower were given only an hour’s warning to leave.

Death by a thousand cuts: Press freedom in Viktor Orban's Hungary

One of Hungary's most credible and adversarial news outlets - Index.hu - loses its editor.

Index.hu, Hungary's last big independent outlet, is one step closer to being under the control of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

China's Pushback: Beijing questions Western reporting on Xinjiang

Xinjiang is back in the news and Beijing is pushing back - calling media coverage biased and inaccurate. But is it?

Despite China's best efforts, journalists are finding innovative ways to tell the story of the mass internment of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province.

Sino-Indian clash: Disputed border, divided media

Chinese and Indian media take opposite approaches to reporting the deadly clash between troops along the border.

Sino-Indian clash: Disputed border, divided media

The two most populous countries in the world, China and India, are dealing with the fallout of their first deadly border clash in almost half a century. Twenty Indian soldiers were reportedly killed, some clubbed to death, by Chinese forces.

We know practically nothing else about the story - that is because the confrontation took place in the middle of nowhere at an altitude of 14,000 feet (about 4,300 metres), on a Himalayan mountain that journalists cannot get to, and because the two governments are saying very little. Indian media are speculating, calling for boycotts, and urging their politicians to wage an economic war against China. On the other side, the coverage is almost non-existent.

Why are journalists reporting on the pandemic facing threats?

United Nations warns of a 'second pandemic' of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

The spread of the coronavirus and how to stop it dominates the news agenda of nearly every media outlet in the world right now.

Public health bodies rely on them to keep people informed. But journalists are facing threats as they try to separate fact from misinformation.

There have been reports of retaliation against the media since the global outbreak began.

The science and the art of open-source journalism

From Xinjiang, China to Douma, Syria - how challenging stories are being reported using tools of open-source journalism.

Citizen journalism allows anybody with a mobile phone to document current events and produce content that is now routinely used by news organisations.

Open-source journalists often start with that kind of material - and then they apply some of the same investigative techniques that are used by police and intelligence agencies. It is a growth industry, partly because of the decline in press freedom across many parts of the world.

Tariq Nafi explores how open-source reporters have proved valuable on the story in Syria.

Journalism that changed 2019

A look at cases where reporting speaks truth to power, exposes wrongdoing, and helps rectify it.

Picking just four was hard but we settled on West Africa and a documentary film Sex for Grades produced by Africa Eye, the investigative arm of BBC Africa.

It follows a radio presenter and investigative journalist, Kiki Mordi, as she exposes the extent of sexual harassment in West African universities.

Speaking from personal experience, she told The Listening Post: "People like to make excuses for abusers and people like making excuses for harassers. But right there, visualising it, seeing it and putting your own daughter in that room, I think you would have a rethink about the excuses you were going to make for abusers or lecturers who harassed their students."

Boycott, resist, push back: Shifting narratives on Israel in the US

We travel across the US to see how the discourse on Israel is evolving among politicians, journalists and activists.

The United States's support for Israel, usually at the expense of Palestine, has been unwavering - one of the most reliably bipartisan issues in US politics - with Republicans and Democrats standing with their Israeli allies through thick and thin.

But times are changing; as is the narrative. You can see it online, in print, as well as in the halls of Congress.

In this special episode of The Listening Post, Richard Gizbert travels across the US to examine some of the key moments that have revealed how the discourse on Israel is shifting.

Turkey: No country for bold journalists?

We speak to three Turkish journalists living in exile. Plus, a voice in Ankara's defence.

Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a rare press briefing for journalists in the country's media capital, Istanbul. In his opening remarks, Erdogan said that freedom of the press was of "vital importance" to him.

It was a statement that failed to square with the facts, let alone the numbers. Because for each of the last three years - ever since July of 2016, when an attempted coup failed to depose the president - Turkey has imprisoned more journalists than any other country.

For all of those jailed, however, the government has prosecuted a much longer list of media workers whose fates still hang in the balance. It's a state of limbo that has driven many of the accused into exile, to seek asylum abroad.

Media haven or hell? The paradox of journalism in Turkey

A look at two groups of exiled journalists: those on the run from Turkey, and others who have found a sanctuary there.

Turkey: No country for bold journalists?

Last month, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a rare press briefing for journalists in the country's media capital, Istanbul.

In his opening remarks, Erdogan said that freedom of the press was of "vital importance" to him.

It was a statement that failed to square with the facts, let alone the numbers. Because for each of the last three years -- since July of 2016, when an attempted coup failed to depose the president -- Turkey has imprisoned more journalists than any other country.

Why is press freedom deteriorating globally? | Inside Story

Journalists around the world are facing increasing hostility, new report by Reporters Without Borders shows.

Media freedom is in decline and journalists around the world are working in an intense climate of fear.

This year's evaluation by Reporters Without Borders shows a marked drop in the number of countries where it is safe for journalists to work.

The World Press Freedom Index covers the state of journalism in 180 countries.

It found only eight percent of them have a media climate considered "good" for journalists.

The biggest deterioration is in the Americas with the United States, Brazil, Venezuelaand Nicaragua performing poorly.

Editorial

The Guardian view on the press and Donald Trump: at work, not at war

On Thursday, hundreds of US news organisations are publishing editorials opposing the president’s attacks on the press. The Guardian stands with them

Press freedom was not invented in the United States, but there are few nations in which the importance of an independent press has been so closely woven into its long history. This great American tradition of civic respect for truth and truth-telling is now under threat. Donald Trump is not the first US president to attack the press or to feel unfairly treated by it. But he is the first who appears to have a calculated and consistent policy of undermining, delegitimising and even endangering the press’s work.

the press’s work.

On Thursday, following an initiative by the Boston Globe, it is expected that some 350 editorial boards in news organisations across the United States will publish their own editorial comments on this issue. There is, of course, a risk in this initiative, and there will be differing press views about it. For some, including Mr Trump, it will feed the narrative that there is a partisan war between the press and the president. But the breadth of the response to the Boston Globe’s suggestion – and the fact that each editorial will be separately and independently written – suggests something different: that those who report and comment, day in and day out, in as professional and objective a manner as we can, are concerned that public respect for journalistic truth, reason and civility are under a new and present threat against which we must stand as best we can. As one editor has put it: we’re not at war with the Trump administration, we’re at work.

Mr Trump’s sweeping abuse of the press is grimly familiar now. He calls the US press “enemies of the people”. He accuses it – the instances now run into hundreds – of producing “fake news” and being “frankly disgusting”. He recently called the press “dangerous and sick”, and charged that they can “cause war”. He has called journalists “the lowest form of humanity”. The former FBI chief James Comey, later fired by Mr Trump, said the president asked him to consider jailing journalists for publishing leaks. His administration has removed reminders to respect press freedom from its internal manuals. He singles out four news organisations in particular – CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post – insulting them in public (as he did at his Chequers press conference) and recently barringa CNN reporter from White House media events.

Inescapably, this campaign has consequences. Public opinion, especially among Mr Trump’s most committed supporters, has become harsher in its views. Almost half of Republican voters (44%) believe the president should be able to close news organisations for “bad behaviour”, according to a recent poll. In another poll this week a majority of Republican voters (51%) say that the news media are “the enemy of the people”. The anti-media mood at some Trump rallies has been intimidating. Social media trolling, violent abuse and threats to journalists (especially sexual threats to women journalists) have reached unprecedented levels. The United Nations human rights commissioner warned this week that Mr Trump’s attacks on the press are “very close to incitement to violence”. In June, five staff members at the Capital Gazette in Maryland were shot dead by a local man with a local grievance. They may not be the last.

It is not the press’s job to save the United States from Mr Trump. It is the press’s job to report, delve, analyse and scrutinise as best it can and without fear. The press has many faults. It can be self-regarding. Far worse, in Mr Trump’s America, some parts of the media are partisan outlets which show a cavalier disregard for truth: the president has embraced these. But a free press must call out intimidation and incitement when it exists. And it must do what it can to preserve respect for the facts and for balanced judgment. In short, it must do its job. Mr Trump’s insults and incitements are a calculated danger to that, and to the respect, civility and dialogue that should exist between the press and its readers. The Guardian stands with the US press in its efforts to maintain the objectivity and the moral boundaries that this president – like so many others in much more dangerous parts of the world – is doing so much to destroy.

Why are journalists increasingly becoming a target?

At least 10 journalists were killed in Afghanistan on Monday. Reporters in many countries face threats every day.

It's becoming ever more risky to be a journalist in today's world.

Two suicide attacks in Afghanistan killed at least nine journalists on Monday. Another journalist was killed later that day in a separate incident. 

The UN has documented the killing of 14 journalists in Afghanistan in 2017 alone. 

But the issue is not unique to that country. Reporters from North Korea to Syria, and Turkey to Eritrea face threats every day. 

Geo goes dark: Media and the military in Pakistan

Media mystery in Pakistan: who ordered Geo News off the air? Plus, covering the world's largest biometric database.

Why did Pakistan's Geo TV go dark?

Pakistan's most-watched broadcast network Geo TV has been off the air for more than a month across much of the country and no one in a position of authority is saying why.

Government ministers and the broadcasting regulator have denied any involvement and the cable companies that pulled the plug on Geo are staying silent. As is the Pakistani military, which has butted heads with Geo before and is suspected by numerous political and media observers as having ordered the blackout.

With no explanation offered, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on trial for corruption, and elections coming - it would seem that Geo's dominance of the media landscape has once again put it on a collision course with the military.