Written By Mehreen Ali
Published 3/12/2024
Image by Luciano via Flickr
Our worldview depends entirely on what we know, and what we know is largely influenced by what we are told. What we are told is in the hands of the messenger–the media. The press has great power in shaping public opinion, from how a story is told and which part of it is highlighted to whose point of view is being expressed. But who has power over the media?
The last two years have proved deadly for journalists worldwide, with 521 journalists being imprisoned concerning their work. China has consistently been at the top of this list since 2014. The charges faced by media workers range from leaking national secrets to picking quarrels, as the Communist Party continues to tighten control over the press and censor any materials that criticize the one-party system. Up to 44% of the 121 prisoners are reported to be Uyghurs, a Turkish ethnic group that has been a victim of subjugation at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party due to paranoia of separatism. Myanmar and Belarus follow with 68 and 39 detainees each.
An alarming 84 journalists are missing, 39 of these cases being enforced disappearances by official authorities. More than half of them belong to Latin America, with some disappearances dating back to 1989. 2 Ukrainian and 2 Palestinian journalists have gone missing since the onset of the wars in February 2022 and October 2023 respectively, with no information about their whereabouts despite investigation.
45 journalists have been killed in connection to their work in the last year, a number for which war and conflict zones are largely responsible. In the Israel-Gaza region, 63 journalists have died due to various circumstances, but only 17 deaths have sufficient evidence to be classified as work-related. Palestine has the highest death toll with 13 deaths, all of which occurred under Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip. 2 Lebanese journalists were killed by the Israeli bombing of Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon. Roee Idan, an Israeli photojournalist, was killed by Hamas in the southwest of the country on the first day of the conflict. The Russia-Ukraine conflict, too, has resulted in the deaths of 11 Ukrainian journalists and reporters, as well as many injuries and near-misses since the war started. Even peace zones like Mexico, Bangladesh and the Philippines are not safe for the press, with 3 recorded killings in each of these countries.
Criminalizing journalism is a testament to the decline in press freedom around the world, tidily keeping citizens unaware of any information that may provoke defiance. Every day, journalists risk facing violence and intimidation through a range of threats like murder, harassment, kidnapping, detention and torture. The rise of advanced spyware has made it easier for governments and terrorist organizations to track journalists and their sources and subject them to various threats. The fundamental right to freedom of expression, allegedly guaranteed in democracies and at least nominally present in most nations, is under attack and signals of repression arise across the globe.
While the press in the USA enjoys significantly more liberties, they are still under the supervision of federal agencies like the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and on the radar of various political organizations. In Florida, bloggers are fighting a bill that would require them to register with the state if they write criticisms of public officials. Across the country, there are waves of bills regulating publications found in schools and public libraries. The biggest threat to the Freedom of the Press in the country, though, lies with large multimedia corporations. Today, 90% of all the media in the United States is controlled by a small handful of corporations– AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, Newscorp and Viacom. Any large company looks for one thing— profit— and to secure gains, they need to jump on the bandwagon and adhere to majority opinion, inherently suppressing dissent. Prominent news outlets like NBC, CNN, TIME, Fox and Wall Street Journal are owned by these conglomerates. Information from these sources, which influences our daily lives, is liable to the bias that comes with corporate takeover. That means this information could be contradictory, deceptive, misleading or all three simultaneously.
And so I ask, Where is the “Free Press”? How much do we know? Who can we trust? What is the real story?
Citations:
2023 RSF Roundup: https://reliefweb.int/attachments/03454694-447a-46e4-bc0e-3a2533260641/Bilan_2023_EN_0.pdf
Silencing the Messenger:
The Big Six’s Media Game:
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