Three years after the Myanmar military’s violent coup, journalists continue to struggle with press freedom and are trying to rebuild independent media voices in support of democracy both inside and outside the country.
The 2023 edition of the Freedom in the World report, produced by US nonprofit Freedom House, was released today. This is the 50th year of the study, which tracks global trends and compiles individual country reports on political rights and liberties.
Hungarian investigative media outlet Átlátszó and its editor-in-chief, Tamás Bodoky, have become targets in the latest smear campaign by pro-government news outlets, aimed at discrediting what remains of the country’s independent media.
To confront the ongoing legal threats to independent media around the world, the Vance Center and OCCRP are launching Reporters Shield, a multi-million dollar legal support program and defense fund for investigative journalism and newsrooms.
The Uğur Mumcu Investigative Journalism Foundation plays a unique role in Turkey. Decades after its creation, it is still training investigative journalists in the country’s increasingly polarized media environment.
Like spyware, forensic tools can access everything on a phone or computer, but unlike spyware, such tools are in widespread, open usage in democracies as well as more repressive regimes. Their use has accelerated threats to the press while protections and public awareness lag behind.
Because of growing threats to democracy, and a recent series of ever more extreme societal and planetary crises, funders now see more clearly the pivotal, central role that independent public interest media play in keeping our societies and economies open. And what’s even more encouraging is to see this positive talk backed up with concrete measures and actions.
Radio Zamaneh Executive Director Joris van Duijne discusses how his exile media site is reporting from afar on the widespread political protests reverberating across Iran.
To mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its annual report on the state of justice for attacks on the press around the world. It found that no one has been held accountable for 80% of all journalist murders in the past decade.
A press freedom crisis is rippling across Latin America and in some places the technological, legal, and physical threats have grown so severe that investigative journalists feel compelled to flee their home countries to keep reporting.
Conditions for journalists in authoritarian countries are challenging and often dangerous. In light of these challenges, journalists and donors need to widen their understanding of the less traditional ways journalism generates impact.
Meera Jatav, the co-founder of the award-winning, grassroots feminist media organization Khabar Lahariya, has won admiration for her courageous investigations into gender-based violence and caste in India. Here is the keynote speech she delivered at the Centre for Investigative Journalism’s summer conference in London.
Intrepid journalists are still conducting investigations on countries within the Arab Gulf region, but due to political repression and other press freedom issues, they’ve had to report from afar or build and operate their independent media sites while in exile.
Winners of the prestigious 2022 Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Awards were recently announced in Hong Kong, in a gala event that recognized innovative data and investigative journalism as well as the courage of reporters working in Asia’s rising climate of censorship and media repression.
Attendees at the Pulitzer Center’s climate change reporting summit held up posters and spoke out to raise awareness about the disappearance of journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, who went missing in the Amazon rainforest. A suspect has since confessed to killing the men, and two bodies thought to be them have been found, according to media reports.
Andras Petho, co-founder of the investigative news outlet Direkt36, offers lessons learned from witnessing first-hand the press crackdown of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Russian journalists who have fled their home country over censorship and security issues are now rebuilding their lives and careers amid a diaspora community in Riga, Latvia.
Independent media now have to deal with an increasing number of digital attacks on press freedom, from brute-force attacks on their servers to more sophisticated assaults on their social media presence and digitally-based legal challenges.
Reporters Sans Frontiéres released its 2022 World Press Freedom Index, calling out the growing threat of polarization and “information chaos,” and their potentially disastrous impact on independent media around the world.
On World Press Freedom Day 2022, journalists around the world, many of them now in exile, are pushing back against a growing crackdown on a free press.
An editor from Novaya Gazeta and the chief executive of Meduza discussed ongoing censorship and other threats to independent media inside Russia, plus their plans for the future, during an International Press Institute webinar.
Among the most frequently used forms of legal coercion against investigative journalists are SLAPPs (“strategic litigation against public participation”), which aim to intimidate reporters into abandoning their investigations. The practice of abusing legal systems by those in power to silence critics has reached global proportions. Its damage is far-reaching and curbing it is an imperative for democracy and maintaining peace.
Throughout 2021, reporters from around the Arab world produced excellent investigative work, some as part of transnational reporting collaborations on human rights, financial investigations, and phone hacking. With a salute to our colleagues who work in this very tough neighborhood, we are proud to highlight some of the best investigative journalism from the past year.
Despite worsening legal and physical attacks on the press, solidarity among journalists in Russia and the Eastern European region is growing. Our list of the eight best investigations of the year reveals that more and more cross-border, joint investigations are being carried out, and illustrate continuing reporting courage in the region that should inspire the entire journalism community.
In their acceptance speeches in Oslo, Norway, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov issued a clarion call to the world to support and defend independent journalism in an era awash in misinformation, propaganda, and rising authoritarianism.
Fact-based journalism has been under siege as newsrooms worldwide struggle against the onslaught of misinformation, disinformation, and falling revenues. But the awarding of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, two renowned investigative journalists, is a boost to reporters and highlights the importance of quality journalism for democracy.
Even after the coup in Myanmar, Frontier Myanmar has continued reporting on socio-economic issues. Publishing deeply reported pieces has made them popular among their readers. However, the entire website is now behind a paywall and available only to paying members — rates that are high for an average news consumer within a country where roughly 37% of the people live below the poverty line.
Press freedom – as exercised by independent news organizations free from the control of governments, political parties and other partisan interests – is fundamental to the development of peaceful, just and democratic societies. These organizations foster dialogue, respect for individual rights and good governance.
