Media, our best hope
THE 2016 media freedom report card makes for uncomfortable reading. Impunity for those who kill journalists continues to undermine attempts by legal systems worldwide to deliver justice and ensure the rule of law. Read alongside rising numbers of physical attacks and an increasingly hostile online space, we remain far from guaranteeing a safe environment for media professionals, across any domain.
The persistent application of national security laws to punish media or further tighten limitations on freedom of expression has sent a chill through global newsrooms
According to CPJ’s annual prison census, the world’s jails were home to some 259 journalists in 2016, the highest number on record. Just how many stories never make it into the public record as a result we shall never know. The evidence we do have suggests silence is spreading, the imperative to think twice before publishing more commonplace than ever. With the intertwining complexity of commercial interests and the precarious financial situations of media houses, those red lines are becoming more like red boxes into which so much is dumped, labelled ‘off limits’ to journalism.
THE 2016 media freedom report card makes for uncomfortable reading. Impunity for those who kill journalists continues to undermine attempts by legal systems worldwide to deliver justice and ensure the rule of law. Read alongside rising numbers of physical attacks and an increasingly hostile online space, we remain far from guaranteeing a safe environment for media professionals, across any domain.
The persistent application of national security laws to punish media or further tighten limitations on freedom of expression has sent a chill through global newsrooms
According to CPJ’s annual prison census, the world’s jails were home to some 259 journalists in 2016, the highest number on record. Just how many stories never make it into the public record as a result we shall never know. The evidence we do have suggests silence is spreading, the imperative to think twice before publishing more commonplace than ever. With the intertwining complexity of commercial interests and the precarious financial situations of media houses, those red lines are becoming more like red boxes into which so much is dumped, labelled ‘off limits’ to journalism.
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