Global Free Speech

Global Free Speech covers international stories and trends affecting the right to speak, publish, and share ideas across borders. From government crackdowns to grassroots movements, this category highlights the global fight for free expression in diverse political and cultural landscapes.

The media freedom delegation with Veran Matic, the chairperson of the management board of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), who is facing open death threats Following a two-day mission to Belgrade on 26-27 March, the partner organisations of the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Safety of Journalists and the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) assessed that the past year had seen a continued deterioration, leaving the country in a prolonged and worsening press freedom crisis. In absence of the recognition by state officials about the severity of the current situation for the safety of journalists, the delegation warns that chances of further escalation in the severity of attacks against journalists remain dangerously high. Multiple reports of journalists being attacked while reporting on the local elections held in 10 municipalities on Sunday 29 March after the mission concluded, reinforce the delegation’s findings. The use of violence to restrict reporting and the absence of protections fosters a toxic environment that severely hinders the ability of journalists to work. The mission came at a time of unprecedented physical attacks on journalists and rampant online smear campaigns, led or amplified by influential members of the ruling party. Following the solidarity mission conducted by the MFRR in April 2025, the situation has worsened, despite repeated calls for action. Since the deadly collapse of Novi Sad train station canopy in November 2024 and the nationwide protests that followed, 294 press freedom violations targeting 513 media professionals and entities have been documented on the Mapping Media Freedom platform. During this time, Serbia has also been among the countries in Europe with the highest number of press freedom alerts on the CoE Platform. Following meetings with journalists, editors, trade unions and associations, the Supreme Public Prosecution office, the police, government and parliamentary officials, media outlets, the public service broadcaster, the international community and civil society bodies, the delegation is fearful that journalists are caught in a spiral of violence with few protections in place. The media freedom environment in Serbia is defined by physical attacks – often perpetrated by those charged with protecting journalists – verbal threats, including death threats, incitement to violence and divisive rhetoric, as well as extensive media capture. Violations also extend online; alongside online smear campaigns, coordinated bot attacks on social media accounts of independent media outlets and journalists, and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on news websites have emerged as new weapons of censorship. Unaccountable use of spyware against journalists and media workers, and the lack of swift and independent investigation into the cases remain an alarming concern that deserves serious attention from the authorities. So far, no accountability has been secured. The widespread violations have been documented in the alerts published on the Council of Europe Platform and Mapping Media Freedom platform, and confirmed by first hand testimony from journalists from print, broadcast and online media. During a meeting with Ana Brnabić, the President of the National Assembly of Serbia, the delegation discussed the climate for media freedom in Serbia and called on the authorities to live up to the heightened responsibilities of those in power to avoid discrediting, demonising and targeting journalists and condemn all attacks. While she told the delegation she was aware of specific high-profile threats to journalists and the heinous legacy of impunity exemplified by the killing of Slavko Ćuruvija, this did not appear to extend to the full spectrum of threats made to journalists, including by the ruling party and amplified by pro-government media tabloids, social media and supporters of the party. Ms Brnabić committed to improve the government’s response rate to alerts published on the Council of Europe Platform. Since the platform’s launch in 2015, 61% of alerts from Serbia have not been responded to. The non-response rate in 2025, coinciding with the documented increase in alerts, was 85%. The delegation welcomed this commitment, but reiterated our request that Ms. Brnabic halt political attacks and condemn them, if they come from others, as a vital first step in rebuilding trust in the state’s willingness to improve media freedom in the country. The increased violence against the press sparked by the nationwide protests in response to the November 2024 Novi Sad canopy tragedy, and the heavy state response that followed, has worsened through 2025 and continues into 2026. The Supreme Public Prosecution Office confirmed that there had been a 115% increase in the number of cases referred to it regarding media workers and a 367% increase in those related to physical attacks. This spike in criminal threats has been met with shocking levels of impunity. In 2025, only three convictions of those responsible for criminal attacks on journalists were secured by judicial authorities. A key factor, the delegation concluded, has been the continued breakdown of both the rule or law and the dedicated systems for the protection of journalists in Serbia. Poor response by the police to prosecutors’ requests concerning attacks on journalists results in the systematic failure to gather sufficient evidence to allow public prosecutions. The role of police is central to the question of journalist safety. However, when meeting the Ministry of Interior, the Belgrade City Police Directorate and the Criminal Police Directorate, the delegation was alarmed by the absence of any acknowledgement of the severity of the issue and the failings of the police force when protecting journalists or investigating violations aimed at journalists. The delegation was not informed about a single case of a police officer who has been held responsible for allegations of misconduct or their failure to act. Even when presented with concrete and well-documented examples of police perpetrating attacks, the law enforcement representatives did not respond in a manner that would suggest a willingness to learn from these failings to fulfil their legal responsibility to protect journalists. At the systemic level, the delegation expressed continued concern over the non-functioning of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) Council. The absence of a functional and independent REM Council represents a severe hindrance for the effective regulation of the overall electronic media and the licensing process. The situation also impacts the governance of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), the public service broadcaster, as well as its oversight mechanisms. With the tenure of four members of the RTS board expiring in June, as well as a general election expected soon, the absence of the REM Council or any timeline by which it will be appointed will continue to embed uncertainty within RTS and the broader media space. In the meeting, Ms Brnabic expressed frustration over the situation and the desire to find a solution, in cooperation with international bodies. The delegation stresses that for credibility of the process to be acceptable under both Serbian law and EU accession progress mechanisms, the election must result in the appointment of a professional, pluralistic and ultimately independent body which acts in the public interest rather than in defence of political interests. These principles are absolutely non-negotiable for the process. The threat landscape facing journalists is diverse and complex. Increasingly, civil and criminal legal actions are deployed against journalists to curtail their reporting, through the threat of costly and time intensive court proceedings. Data held by the National Anti-SLAPP Working Group has identified 48 SLAPPs targeting journalists, editors, publishers and the media since 2020. Investigative outlet KRIK is currently facing 14 legal actions. While prominent outlets may be able to respond through public solidarity actions and receive funding support secured through crowdfunders to mount a defence, for local outlets, who are already struggling economically, an abusive legal action may be enough to shut down their reporting. The Council of Europe Recommendation on countering the use of SLAPPs establishes a detailed roadmap to ensure member states, such as Serbia, can meaningfully tackle abusive lawsuits and protect journalism. Ms Brnabić referenced an eagerness to address this issue and these recommendations provide a strong starting point. Despite clear data from Serbia’s own judicial authorities about the high numbers of attacks on journalists, following its meetings, the mission identified a fundamental disconnect between the seriousness of the situation on the ground and the assessment and response of the authorities. Clear political will is needed to break the downward spiral and ensure all attacks on the media are properly sanctioned under the law. Until then, and until political pressures on independent journalism are reduced, media freedom will continue to suffer, undermining Serbia’s EU accession aspirations. The mission partners will publish a report outlining findings and providing recommendations to the Serbian authorities, which will also be shared with the Council of Europe, European Union and the Organisation for the Security and Cooperation (OSCE). The mission was led by Article 19 Europe and joined by the Association of European Journalists (AEJ), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), Index on Censorship, International Press Institute (IPI), Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Vlasti u Srbiji moraju da zaustave spiralu nasilja prema novinarima i novinarkama Sloboda medija u Srbiji ostaje zarobljena u silaznoj spirali usled rekordnog nivoa fizičkog nasilja prema novinarima i novinarkama, pretnji smrću i onlajn kampanja blaćenja, zabrinjavajućeg nivoa nekažnjivosti, kao i čvrste političke kontrole nad medijskim okruženjem, zaključila je koalicija organizacija za slobodu medija. Nakon dvodnevne misije u Beogradu, 26–27. marta, partnerske organizacije Platforme Saveta Evrope za zaštitu novinarstva i bezbednost novinara i inicijative Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) ocenile su da je u protekloj godini došlo do daljeg pogoršanja, ostavljajući zemlju u produženoj i sve dubljoj krizi slobode medija. U odsustvu priznanja državnih zvaničnika o ozbiljnosti trenutne situacije u pogledu bezbednosti novinara i novinarki, delegacija upozorava da su šanse za dalje eskaliranje ozbiljnosti napada na novinare i novinarke opasno visoke. Brojni izveštaji o napadima na novinare i novinarke tokom izveštavanja o lokalnim izborima održanim u 10 opština u nedelju, 29. marta, nakon završetka misije, dodatno potvrđuju nalaze delegacije. Upotreba nasilja radi ograničavanja izveštavanja, kao i izostanak zaštite, stvaraju toksično okruženje koje ozbiljno otežava rad novinara i novinarki. Misija je sprovedena u trenutku nezapamćenog broja fizičkih napada na novinare  i novinarke i rasprostranjenih onlajn kampanja blaćenja, koje predvode ili pojačavaju uticajni članovi vladajuće stranke. Nakon misije solidarnosti koju je MFRR sproveo u aprilu 2025. godine, situacija se dodatno pogoršala, uprkos ponovljenim pozivima na delovanje. Od smrtonosnog urušavanja nadstrešnice železničke stanice u Novom Sadu u novembru 2024. godine i talasa protesta širom zemlje koji je usledio, na platformi Mapping Media Freedom dokumentovano je 294 kršenja slobode medija usmerena na 513 medijskih profesionalaca i subjekata. U tom periodu, Srbija je takođe bila među zemljama u Evropi sa najvećim brojem upozorenja o kršenjima slobode medija na Platformi Saveta Evrope. Nakon sastanaka sa novinarima, urednicima, sindikatima i udruženjima, Vrhovnim javnim tužilaštvom, policijom, predstavnicima vlade i parlamenta, medijima, javnim servisom, međunarodnom zajednicom i organizacijama civilnog društva, delegacija izražava zabrinutost da su novinari i novinarke zarobljeni u spirali nasilja uz vrlo ograničene mehanizme zaštite. Medijsko okruženje u Srbiji karakterišu fizički napadi – često počinjeni od strane onih koji su zaduženi za zaštitu novinara i novinarki – verbalne pretnje, uključujući pretnje smrću, podsticanje na nasilje i zapaljivu retoriku koja produbljuje podele, kao i izražena zarobljenost medija. Kršenja se šire i na onlajn prostor; pored kampanja blaćenja na internetu, koordinisani bot napadi na naloge nezavisnih medija i novinara na društvenim mrežama, kao i Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) napadi na informativne sajtove, pojavili su se kao nova sredstva cenzure. Nekontrolisana upotreba špijunskog softvera protiv novinara i novinarki i medijskih radnika, kao i izostanak brzih i nezavisnih istraga u tim slučajevima, ostaju ozbiljan razlog za zabrinutost koji zahteva hitnu pažnju nadležnih organa. Do sada niko nije odgovarao za ove slučajeve. Rasprostranjena kršenja dokumentovana su kroz upozorenja objavljena na Platformi Saveta Evrope i Mapping Media Freedom platformi, a potvrđena su i neposrednim svedočenjima novinara i novinarki iz štampanih, elektronskih i onlajn medija. Tokom sastanka sa Anom Brnabić, predsednicom Narodne skupštine Republike Srbije, delegacija je razgovarala o stanju slobode medija u Srbiji i pozvala vlasti da ispune pojačanu odgovornost koju imaju kao nosioci vlasti, da se uzdrže od diskreditovanja, demonizacije i targetiranja novinara i i novinarki, te da osude sve napade. Iako je delegaciji rekla da je upoznata sa konkretnim pretnjama novinarima i novinarkama i sa zlokobnim nasleđem nekažnjivosti, koje ilustruje ubistvo Slavka Ćuruvije, činilo se da se to ne odnosi na čitav spektar pretnji upućenih novinarima i novinarkama, uključujući i one koje dolaze od vladajuće stranke, a koje dodatno pojačavaju provladini tabloidni mediji, društvene mreže i pristalice te stranke. Gospođa Brnabić se obavezala da unapredi stopu odgovora vlasti na upozorenja objavljena na Platformi Saveta Evrope. Od pokretanja Platforme 2015. godine, na 61% upozorenja iz Srbije nije odgovoreno. Stopa neodgovaranja u 2025. godini, koja se poklapa sa zabeleženim porastom broja upozorenja, iznosila je 85%. Delegacija je pozdravila ovo obavezivanje, ali je ponovila zahtev da gospođa Brnabić obustavi političke napade i da ih osudi kada dolaze od drugih, kao ključni prvi korak ka obnovi poverenja u spremnost države da unapredi slobodu medija u zemlji. Povećano nasilje nad medijima, podstaknuto masovnim protestima širom zemlje kao reakcijom na tragediju urušavanja nadstrešnice u Novom Sadu u novembru 2024. godine, kao i snažnim odgovorom države koji je usledio, dodatno se pogoršalo tokom 2025. i nastavlja se i u 2026. godini. Vrhovno javno tužilaštvo potvrdilo je da je došlo do povećanja od 115% u broju predmeta koji su mu upućeni u vezi sa medijskim radnicima, kao i do porasta od 367% u slučajevima koji se odnose na fizičke napade. Ovaj nagli rast krivičnih dela praćen je zabrinjavajućim nivoom nekažnjivosti. Tokom 2025. godine, pravosudni organi doneli su svega tri osuđujuće presude počiniocima krivičnih dela nad novinarima i i novinarkama. Ključni faktor, zaključila je delegacija, jeste kontinuirano urušavanje vladavine prava, kao i sistema namenjenih zaštiti novinara i novinarki u Srbiji. Nedovoljno efikasan odgovor policije na zahteve tužilaštva u vezi sa napadima na novinare i novinarke dovodi do sistematskog neuspeha u prikupljanju dovoljno dokaza koji bi omogućili pokretanje krivičnih postupaka. Uloga policije je ključna za pitanje bezbednosti novinara i novinarki. Međutim, tokom sastanaka sa Ministarstvom unutrašnjih poslova, Policijskom upravom za grad Beograd i Upravom kriminalističke policije, delegacija je bila zabrinuta zbog izostanka bilo kakvog priznanja ozbiljnosti problema i propusta policije u zaštiti novinara i novinarki i istrazi kršenja usmerenih protiv njih. Delegacija nije obaveštena ni o jednom slučaju u kojem je policijski službenik snosio odgovornost za navode o neprofesionalnom postupanju ili propust da reaguje. Čak i kada su predstavljeni konkretni i dobro dokumentovani primeri u kojima su policijski službenici bili počinioci napada, predstavnici organa za sprovođenje zakona nisu reagovali na način koji bi ukazivao na spremnost da iz ovih propusta izvuku pouke i ispune svoju zakonsku obavezu zaštite novinara i novinarki. Na sistemskom nivou, delegacija je izrazila kontinuiranu zabrinutost zbog nefunkcionisanja Saveta Regulatornog tela za elektronske medije (REM). Odsustvo funkcionalnog i nezavisnog Saveta REM-a predstavlja ozbiljnu prepreku za efikasno regulisanje elektronskih medija u celini, kao i za proces izdavanja dozvola. Ovakva situacija utiče i na upravljanje Radio-televizijom Srbije (RTS), javnim medijskim servisom, kao i na mehanizme njenog nadzora. Imajući u vidu da mandat četvoro članova Upravnog odbora RTS-a ističe u junu, kao i da se uskoro očekuju opšti izbori, odsustvo Saveta REM-a ili bilo kakvog vremenskog okvira za njegovo imenovanje nastaviće da produbljuje neizvesnost u vezi sa RTS-om i širim medijskim prostorom. Tokom sastanka, gospođa Brnabić je izrazila frustraciju zbog nastale situacije i želju da se pronađe rešenje, u saradnji sa međunarodnim telima. Delegacija naglašava da, kako bi proces bio kredibilan i prihvatljiv u skladu sa zakonodavstvom Srbije i mehanizmima pristupanja EU, izbor mora rezultirati imenovanjem profesionalnog, pluralističkog i istinski nezavisnog tela koje deluje u javnom interesu, a ne u odbrani političkih interesa. Ovi principi su apsolutno neupitni za ovaj proces. Spektar pretnji sa kojima se novinari i novinarke suočavaju raznovrstan je i složen. Sve češće se protiv novinara i novinarki koriste građanski i krivični postupci kako bi se ograničilo njihovo izveštavanje, kroz pretnju skupim i dugotrajnim sudskim procesima. Podaci Nacionalne radne grupe za borbu protiv SLAPP tužbi identifikovali su 48 SLAPP postupaka usmerenih protiv novinara, urednika, izdavača i medija od 2020. godine. Istraživački medij KRIK trenutno se suočava sa 14 sudskih postupaka. Dok veći i vidljiviji mediji ponekad mogu da odgovore kroz javne akcije solidarnosti i prikupljanje sredstava putem donacija za svoju odbranu, za lokalne medije, koji se već suočavaju sa ekonomskim poteškoćama, zloupotrebljeni pravni postupak može biti dovoljan da ugasi njihovo izveštavanje. Preporuka Saveta Evrope o suzbijanju zloupotrebe SLAPP tužbi uspostavlja detaljan okvir koji omogućava državama članicama, poput Srbije, da se na smislen način suprotstave ovakvim tužbama i zaštite novinarstvo. Gospođa Brnabić je ukazala na spremnost da se ovo pitanje reši, a ove preporuke predstavljaju snažnu polaznu osnovu. Uprkos jasnim podacima koje pružaju same pravosudne institucije Srbije o visokom broju napada na novinare i novinarke, nakon sastanaka misije uočen je dubok nesklad između ozbiljnosti situacije na terenu i procene i odgovora nadležnih organa. Neophodna je jasna politička volja kako bi se prekinula silazna spirala i obezbedilo da svi napadi na medije budu adekvatno sankcionisani u skladu sa zakonom. Dok se to ne dogodi, i dok se politički pritisci na nezavisno novinarstvo ne smanje, sloboda medija će nastaviti da trpi, podrivajući aspiracije Srbije za članstvo u Evropskoj uniji. Partneri misije objaviće izveštaj sa nalazima i preporukama upućenim vlastima u Srbiji, koji će takođe biti dostavljen Savetu Evrope, Evropskoj uniji i Organizaciji za evropsku bezbednost i saradnju (OEBS). Misiju je predvodila organizacija Article 19 Evropa, a učestvovali su i Udruženje evropskih novinara (AEJ), Komitet za zaštitu novinara (CPJ), Evropska radiodifuzna unija (EBU), Evropska federacija novinara (EFJ), Evropski centar za slobodu medija (ECPMF), Index on Censorship, Međunarodni institut za štampu (IPI), Opservatorija za Balkan Kavkaz Transevropa (OBCT) i Reporteri bez granica (RSF). READ MORE

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Following a two-day mission to Belgrade on 26-27 March, the partner organisations of the Council of Europe’s Platform for the…

Mourners carry the body of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who was killed alongside other journalists in an overnight Israeli strike on their tent in Gaza City, during his funeral in Gaza City on August 11, 2025. Photo: IMAGO/Omar Ashtawy apaimages/Alamy JAMES CAMERON MEMORIAL LECTURE 2026 – MARCH 4, 2026 – LONDON It is January 2000; an aspiring student journalist is on a two-week work placement in Plymouth. She writes stories on local music concerts, mix-ups over the introduction of the metric system for selling fruit and vegetables, clashes between local school sports teams, the building of a new community centre. She interviews strangers in the street about their favourite books as part of a nationwide survey and for their views on dentists. She covers sports, politics, arts, charity, business. And she knows, as she has known since she was six years old, that all she wants to be is a journalist. It is January 2026. A photographer heads to cover protests in Minneapolis in the United States. As he tries to live stream and take photos of the crowd that has gathered to protest immigration enforcement in which a protestor was shot dead, he is tackled to the ground by immigration officers and pepper sprayed. He is handcuffed and arrested. And in that moment, the moment when he is hurled to the ground by officials in combat gear, clutching a face mask he’d bought in a local hardware store to protect himself from tear gas, the photographer thinks only of one thing. He must protect the images he has captured of these events – and he throws his camera out from under him in the hope someone will save it. The journalist in Plymouth, on a two-week placement with the Evening Herald, was me. Then a postgraduate diploma student here at this very university. The photographer is John Abernathy, one of hundreds of journalists in the United States now grappling with a surge in violence against the profession. We dreamed a lot of dreams when we were at City. I dreamed of being the Director General of the BBC. A friend of being the Editor of The Sun. Some wanted to be political reporters, others sports, some wanted to write about arts and culture, others economics and finance. We knew that over the years many would leave the profession. Some went on to great success in the very careers they envisaged, others took unexpected turns into academia, the civil service, and entertainment. But what none of us could have predicted was how radically the environment would change for the profession itself. That the kinds of preparations journalists used to undertake to cover war zones would be needed to cover protests in North America. That journalists covering Westminster or the White House would regularly receive death threats. That a journalist in a European Union country might be killed for their investigative reporting. But that is what has happened. Now, this moment, is the most dangerous time in recent history to be a journalist. Last year, a record 129 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide, the highest number ever in the more than 30 years that the Committee to Protect Journalists has been documenting such data. For the past three years, more than 300 journalists were in jail at the end of the year – including in countries that are supposed democracies. Journalists are subjected to daily online harassment, including threats of death and rape. They are smeared by those in power and mistrusted by those without it. And yet – although this is the worst time in the world to be a journalist – it is also the most important time. Today, I want to examine why journalism has become so devalued, why journalists have become so demeaned, and why those whose job it is to deliver facts, to speak truth to power, to expose corruption and injustice, are now in greater peril than at any time in recent history. I also want to share what we can do about it. And why – if we want to live in anything approaching fair and just societies, ones that uphold rights and freedoms for all – it is essential that we step up to defend a free press — in deeds not just in words. First, let me tell you a little bit about the Committee to Protect Journalists, the organisation I now lead. Based in New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists was founded in 1981 to defend press freedom and journalist safety worldwide. One of our first advocacy campaigns was in support of three British journalists arrested in Argentina while covering the Falklands War. A letter from then CPJ Honorary Chairman Walter Cronkite helped spring them from prison. Sadly, the days when a letter and a stern word could provoke such a result are long gone, so CPJ now works in three ways: • We research and document threats to press freedom globally, • We provide direct assistance to journalists at risk, • And we advocate on behalf of those targeted for their work. Last year, we provided more than $1.3 million in direct financial assistance to journalists needing emergency support, covering everything from the cost of legal fees for reporters wrongfully imprisoned for their work, to medical bills and trauma support for journalists attacked and harassed in retaliation for their reporting, to exile assistance. We reached an unprecedented total of 3,877 journalists last year – more than 5 times the number of the previous year. It’s no surprise those numbers have grown – because attacks on the press have grown exponentially in the past decade. In 1992, when CPJ first started systematically documenting attacks on the press, 56 journalists and media workers were killed. Last year’s number is more than double that. In 1992, there were 113 journalists in jail. Last year’s number is more than triple that. In 1992, Mark Zuckerberg was 8 years old, the launch of Google was still six years away, and Facebook and Twitter would not emerge for more than another decade. Now, the internet and social media dominate communications, and online harassment – especially of women and those from marginalised communities – is rife. Let me give you one recent example. In 2023, Sabrina Schnur, a young female reporter at the Las Vegas-Review Journal in the United States wrote about the hit-and-run killing of a retired police chief. Schnur was the first journalist at the scene after the killing and also the first local reporter to talk to the police chief’s family. But after screenshots of a month-old obituary sparked accusations the Review-Journal was downplaying the death, Schnur was subjected to a slew of hate-filled abuse. Her email inbox and social media mentions were flooded with personal attacks. She was accused of being anti-white. Her photo was shared, and her office phone number circulated. The attackers hurled antisemitic abuse at Schnur, told her they hoped she would get cancer, that she would die. They found her private social media accounts and unearthed posts she’d made as a teenager, going as far back as 2015. Schnur and her colleagues had more reasons than most to be concerned about online threats. A year earlier one of the Review-Journal’s leading reporters – Jeff German – was stabbed to death by a local official who was the subject of German’s reporting. The suspect first targeted German with attacks on social media. How did we get here? Not by accident. The decline in press freedom and journalism safety is directly tied to a decline in democratic norms and a rise in authoritarianism that we are experiencing worldwide. And no wonder. Autocrats and demagogues have long known that to control a population, you need to control the flow of information to that population. Targeting the press is the first step to stifling dissent. If we want to tackle this, we need to understand the playbook for attacking the media, which in essence goes something like this: Smear, Harass, Criminalise, Kill. Let’s start with smearing. This is one you may be familiar with. Name calling may feel like the petulant act of the playground bully but it’s remarkably effective. Hungary’s leader Viktor Orbán does it, smearing the press as “fake news,” former Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte did it, calling them “presstitutes”, US President Donald Trump does it, calling journalists “enemies of the people” and most recently calling one journalist “piggy” and telling another who asked him about his ties to Epstein to “smile”. More insidiously, we are increasingly seeing a tendency to smear journalism itself as a nefarious act – think of the way in which the US Secretary of Defence conjured images of journalists roaming the Pentagon as a security risk. What Pete Hegseth of course conveniently forgot was that journalists have operated successfully from the Pentagon for decades, while it was Hegseth himself who shared secure information about military plans on a Signal chat group in which a journalist had been mistakenly added. Rather than be seen as critical work in the public interest to expose abuses of power, journalism itself is being rebranded as a subversive act. Smears escalate. By setting the tone at the top, those in power create a permission structure for harassment. Sometimes that might be formally orchestrated by those in power, more often it develops organically, among their supporters and sympathisers. Diaspora news outlet, The Haitian Times, for example, received a slew of racist abuse after it reported on the false claims made during the US presidential campaign about Haitians eating pets. In a demonstration of the online to offline risks, one reporter even had police show up at her house after a false report was made about a crime being committed there – a practice known as swatting. Harassment does not just take the form of online or even physical abuse. It can be legal and regulatory as well. This includes the use of so-called SLAPPs – vexatious lawsuits that are designed to drain journalists and media organisations of money and morale. At the time of her murder in 2017, investigative Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was facing 47 such suits. In July last year, CBS owner Paramount settled a case that legal experts widely agreed was spurious for $16 million – a case brought by none other than the US President himself. Weeks later the US broadcast regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, approved a multi billion dollar merger involving Paramount. Harassment can also take financial form. Cutting funding or using public money to favour political friends and punish political enemies has long been a tactic of autocrats but we increasingly see this in democracies. Since Trump took office, his administration has all but eliminated funding for publicly funded media, mostly impacting local, regional broadcasters serving rural communities, as well as effectively shuttering Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia – all services that provided information to and about countries where media freedom is severely curtailed. So, smearing, then harassment. These are steps one and two. But it does not stop there. Because mud sticks. Demeaning journalists, branding them as cheats and liars paves the way for the third factor that is common to this playbook: actually criminalising journalism and journalists. Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has spoken extensively about the way branding of journalists as criminals by those in power helps soften the public up for subsequent actual criminalisation and arrest – and of course even killing. Years before the state launched lawsuits against her, the Philippines was readying the public to believe she was an actual criminal by painting her as one. Dubbing journalists as criminals is a deliberate strategy intended to sow doubt in the mind of the public about their trustworthiness – and therefore about the trustworthiness of their information. It’s a means to control the narrative. But criminalising journalists is not just about controlling public perception. It’s also used as a means to silence individual journalists – and to send a warning to other reporters and news outlets. It is a tactic used increasingly, even in supposed democratic regimes. Take the example of Hong Kong where 78-year-old British citizen Jimmy Lai, founder of the independent Apple Daily newspaper, was given a 20 year jail sentence. Lai has been in jail in Hong Kong. Largely in solitary confinement, since 2020 on numerous charges, including sedition and collusion with foreign forces for having the temerity to publish a newspaper that covered pro-democracy protests. In Guatemala, José Rubén Zamora, who for decades has exposed government corruption in his country, was recently released from jail in Guatemala where he faced trumped up charges of money laundering. In both cases, the legal teams for these journalists have themselves faced targeted harassment and threats – and in both cases the newspapers they founded have been forced to shutter as a result of legal action. And, of course, we have seen this over and over again in Gaza, where Israel repeatedly smears journalists as terrorists and militants, without providing evidence – as a way to justify subsequently killing them. Killing journalists is the ultimate form of censorship. And no discussion of journalist safety in the current moment can avoid what has been the deadliest assault on journalists since CPJ began. Of the 129 journalists and media workers killed last year, 86 were killed by Israel. The majority of them were Palestinians. Israel has now killed more journalists than any other government since CPJ began collecting records in 1992, making the Israel-Gaza war the deadliest on record for journalists. And let’s be clear. These are not the ordinary casualties of war. In at least 38 cases documented by CPJ last year alone, we believe journalists were deliberately targeted. This includes Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, whose life CPJ publicly warned was in danger after repeated, unsubstantiated smears by Israel against him. Following years of such threats, Al-Sharif was murdered on August 10, alongside three other Al Jazeera staff journalists and two freelancers in a strike on a tent housing reporters. Journalists are civilians. Deliberately targeting them constitutes a war crime. The magnitude of Israel’s killings is exceptional, but – worldwide – the killing of journalists, the smearing of journalists, the harassment, the legal threats, the financial punishments – these are no longer an exception. Ok. So at this point, you may be shrugging your shoulders and saying, “Who cares?” Maybe you think the media brought it on themselves. Maybe you hate the “lamestream” media and think we all deserve to be smeared, harassed and attacked. I want to tell you why it matters. It matters because information is a prerequisite for free and open societies. Attacks on journalists are the first sign of democratic decline. Study after study shows that attacks on journalists matter because they are a clear indicator that attacks on other rights, our rights, will follow. It matters because journalism is essential for our everyday lives. Without it, we don’t have the information about the decisions being made by governments in our name or how our taxes are being spent. We don’t have information that might help keep us safer or healthier or might help stop abusive practices. It matters because journalism is essential if we want to understand the world. In Gaza, it is Palestinian journalists who have been our eyes and ears for two and a half years so that we can understand what is happening there. With no independent international access allowed since October 7, it is local journalists who are bearing witness to the genocide that they are also living through. Journalism is essential if we want to understand our own country. In the UK, it is journalists who have repeatedly uncovered government scandals. Journalists like my friend, former City alum, and multi award winning journalist Pippa Crerar, who – among other things – exposed the Partygate scandal. Harriet Harman, who chaired the parliamentary investigation into Partygate praised Pippa’s journalism in the Commons, saying: “This episode has shown that wrongdoing has not gone undiscovered and attempts to cover it up have failed, but it would have been undiscovered had not the press doggedly investigated.” Journalism is essential because reliable, fact-based information can save lives. When wildfires broke out in California at the start of the year, local residents turned to local media for information about the outbreaks: about where was safe, how the fires were moving, what precautions to take. In many rural parts of the United States, there is no reliable internet. Local radio is the most important source of information, especially in an emergency. In rural Alaska, it is the local independent radio stations who are tasked with providing early warnings of tsunamis and extreme weather – stations whose funding has been gutted by federal cuts. In the absence of independent, reliable fact-based media, a vacuum is created. One that is easily filled with lies, half-truths and propaganda. We cannot afford to be complacent. Journalism has value, it has impact – and yet journalists are being killed at a faster rate than in any other time in recent history, journalists are being jailed in higher numbers than at any other moment in recent history. News deserts – places with no access to credible news and information about their local community – are spreading. Funding for independent journalism in and about countries with little or no media freedom has been slashed. So, if we know journalism has value and if we know that it is under attack like never before, what are we going to do about it? Well, firstly, we need to accept that current ways of operating are failing and we need to look for new ones. One example of this is impunity. It is widely recognised that impunity – a failure to punish those responsible for attacks on journalists – creates environments that allows further attacks – more egregious, more violent attacks – to persist and flourish. More than a decade ago, the United Nations established the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists as an effort to draw attention to this fact. Each year for more than a decade we at the Committee to Protect Journalists would publish a report on the worst offenders – the countries where most journalist murders had gone unpunished. And yet the numbers remained stubbornly and persistently high. So, instead of thinking about what everyone else needed to do to address this, this year we took a look at ourselves. And that’s why on International Day to End Impunity this year, CPJ decided to drop our annual Impunity Index. Measuring which governments were – literally – getting away with murder was a useful way to shed light on the issue a decade ago, but it’s no longer enough. We are overhauling our approach to focus where we know we can have impact and on new initiatives that hold promise. These initiatives include: Firstly, pursuit of justice in key cases. Our experience in the past decade has shown that one of the most effective mechanisms for tackling impunity is a relentless pursuit of justice in individual cases. Going forward, CPJ is dedicating increased resources to a select number of such emblematic cases, supporting families and local communities in their often-lengthy fights to continue investigations and prosecutions. Secondly, we are pushing for the establishment of a standing independent international investigative task force focused on violent crimes against journalists. Relying on perpetrators of crimes against journalists to lead investigations into those crimes and hold those responsible accountable will always make ending impunity an uphill if not impossible battle. We need an independent global body readily available to support investigations – local, regional or international – into attacks. Thirdly, we need to see increased accountability from companies. Businesses play a key role in enabling attacks on journalists. CPJ is stepping up its focus on investigating and seeking accountability over the use of companies’ technology in cases where journalists are targeted or harmed. The increased use of drones is likely to be a particular focus in 2026. We asked ourselves, “What can and should we be doing in this moment?” and it is a question we must all ask ourselves. So here are some things you can do as an individual: 1. Spend money! Invest in local media The evisceration of local media has been credibly linked to worsening outcomes for communities, including loss of community cohesion, lack of oversight and accountability leading to poor spending decisions, increased corruption, and even rising local taxes. If you don’t already, do it, go out today and subscribe to your local news outlet. Or someone else’s. When the Kansan local newspaper the Marion Country Record in the US was wrongfully raided by police a few years ago, subscribers flooded to support the outlet – including many who lived hundreds of miles away. One Florida man told the Record’s editor he subscribed because he’d read local newspapers as a boy and missed the sense of community (2,500 kms away). 2. Lobby your local authorities and governments, and your employers! It is not enough for governments to say they support a free press. They need to demonstrate this in practice, both at home, and in their dealings with governments abroad – and they need to know their constituent’s care. As voters, we can ask our elected representatives to make these issues a priority. As employees, we can ask our employers to make this a priority. If you are an academic, does your university have programs for exiled journalists/ journalists at risk? Do your professional journalism courses include safety modules as standard? If you are a journalist, does your employer provide digital health checks or privacy tools? If the answer to these questions is no, ask for them. I can help you… 3. Let’s do our jobs as journalists. When I started at CPJ three and a half years ago, the motto of the organisation was “using the tools of journalism to protect journalists.” To be honest, as a former reporter, I somewhat scoffed at this description. After all, we are not a news agency. We are not a newspaper of record. We are an advocacy organisation. But over the past three years, as I have watched our profession fail over and over again in its coverage of Gaza, I have come to realise how important it is for all of us to recommit to, and publicly champion, the core principles of good journalism. It is the very essence of good journalism – the ruthless pursuit and public dissemination of facts – that will be our strongest defence. Recentring facts means explaining how we got them and why they matter. One of the reasons I would argue that journalists have suffered such a loss of trust in recent years – quite apart from some clear and obvious failures, including illegal phone hacking here in the UK – is that we assumed people understood what we did and what value we had. But as more and more individuals claim to be journalists or news outlets claim to be conducting journalism, those who are engaged in actual journalism – reporting to establish facts – need to do more to show how they arrived at the information and why they should be trusted. Recentring facts also means celebrating your impact. When I became a reporter, I was told time and again that journalists didn’t like to report on ourselves. That reporting on issues facing the industry could be considered self-indulgent. But if we want people to understand the worth of journalism, we must report not just the news, but how and when our reporting has effected change. Let’s be half as brave as our colleagues who risk everything to report the truth. I was asked in a recent interview what message I had for Western journalists covering Gaza. My response – although in slightly more colourful language – was “Do your job.” The job of a journalist is not that of a parrot – it is not simply to ask questions and rehearse what we are told. That’s not fact finding. That’s stenography. Our job is to dig deeper, to see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears where possible, and – if not possible – to gather as much information from as many sources as possible to establish the truth. Instead of worrying about being perceived to take sides, our responsibility is to report the facts. It requires courage. Cowardice is the enemy of good journalism. George Orwell had this right back in his original proposed preface to Animal Farm. “Obviously,” Orwell wrote, “it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship… But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.” Animal Farm was published in 1945. What Orwell wrote then is as true today: our job as journalists is to stand up to the bullies – not to bow to them. That’s what CPJ wrote to Shari Redstone, former chair of Paramount, when we urged her not to settle with Trump over his lawsuit against CBS. Capitulation creates a precedent – and each individual capitulation weakens the entire ecosystem. I am by no means saying this is easy. Journalism will always be risky as will defending it. It takes a certain level of defiance – a willingness to speak truth to power, to report things as they are, as we see them, and to place them in context – even, and perhaps especially, when it’s not what people want to hear. Doing it well takes courage and conviction. In 2009, prominent Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered by a group of men on motorcycles. He had been receiving threats for months but refused to stay silent about the injustices in his country. For the last decade, Filipino journalist – now Nobel Laureate, Maria Ressa has been subject to a relentless legal campaign intended to discredit, bankrupt, and ultimately silence the critical reporting coming from both her and her newsroom, Rappler. At one point, she faced a possible sentence of more than a hundred years behind bars. But Maria knows that the job of a journalist is to report the facts, not to bend to those who benefit from their burial. She refuses to stay silent. More than 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel since the start of the Israel-Gaza war. Many have been deliberately threatened and warned explicitly by Israel to stop their reporting. All know the risks they take in wielding cameras when Israel has repeatedly targeted journalists even when wearing press vests and working from known press zones. They know that in the end facts are our superpower. They know that killing the messenger does not kill the message. So, they refused to stop. They refused to be silent. If we want to save journalists, if we want to save journalism, we all must do the same. BY JODIE GINSBERG CEO, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS Editors note: This is the alert that the CPJ put out over the weekend in response to an Israeli strike on a media car which killed three journalists in Southern Lebanon. READ MORE

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JAMES CAMERON MEMORIAL LECTURE 2026 – MARCH 4, 2026 – LONDON It is January 2000; an aspiring student journalist is…

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