THE Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the many crises that threaten press freedom. Reliable, diverse and independent information is at risk. The next 10 years will be pivotal to press freedom due to several converging crises.
These are geopolitical (due to the aggressiveness of authoritarian regimes); technological (due to a lack of technological guarantees), democratic (due to polarisation and repressive policies) and economic (impoverishing quality journalism). And what would be significant for the very survival of journalism is a crisis of trust (due to suspicion and even hatred of the media).
The five areas of crisis are compounded by a global public health crisis, according to the findings of the 2020 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and released recently. Its secretary-general, Christophe Deloires, declares that we are entering a decisive decade for journalism linked to crises that affect its future.
“The coronavirus pandemic illustrates the negative factors threatening the right to reliable information, and is itself an exacerbating factor. What will freedom of information, pluralism and reliability look like in 2030? The answer to that question is being determined today,” he says.
RSF finds a clear correlation between suppression of media freedom in response to the coronavirus pandemic and a country’s ranking in the index. Malaysia is ranked at 101 out of 180 countries, registering a rise of 22 places — the biggest rise in the 2020 Index. The other country to see a rise of also 22 places is the Maldives, to 79th position. The third biggest leap was by Sudan (159th), which rose 16 places after (president) Omar al-Bashir’s removal.
The link is also seen in both China (177th) and Iran (down three places at 173rd) — they censored their major coronavirus outbreaks extensively. In Iraq (down six at 162nd), the authorities stripped Reuters of its licence for three months after it published a story questioning official coronavirus figures. In Europe, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary (down two at 89th), had a “coronavirus” law passed with penalties of up to five years in prison for false information, a completely disproportionate and coercive measure.
Significantly, Beijing has failed to learn coronavirus lessons and further tightens censorship. According to RSF, China languishes near the bottom of the index and does not appear willing to learn the lessons of the pandemic, whose spread was facilitated by censorship and pressure on whistle-blowers. Worse, Beijing used the crisis to further ban the publication of any reports that question how it has been managed.
By making extensive use of the latest technology, President Xi Jinping has succeeded in imposing a social model based on the control of news and information and the surveillance of citizens. Of the 100-plus journalists and bloggers now in prison, at least three journalists and three political commentators have been arrested in connection with the pandemic. China has also tightened its grip on social networks, censoring many keywords linked to coronavirus. The crackdown on foreign correspondents has been tightened with 16 being expelled since the start of the year.
However, the greatest challenge faced by the profession is perhaps the crisis of trust. Mistrust of media outlets suspected of broadcasting or publishing news contaminated by unreliable information continues to grow. RSF, citing Edelman Trust Barometer, which studies the public’s trust in institutions, says 57 per cent polled in its latest international survey thought the media they used were contaminated with untrustworthy information.
Undermined by this crisis of trust, journalists become the targets of the public’s anger during big street protests taking place in many parts of the world, including Iraq, Lebanon (down one at 102nd), Chile (down five at 51st), Bolivia (down one at 114th) and Ecuador (down one at 98th), as well as in France (down two at 32nd), where journalists are also the victims of police violence.
In another increasingly visible phenomenon, nationalist or far-right activist groups have openly targeted journalists in Spain (29th), Austria (down two at 18th), Italy (down two at 41st) and Greece (65th), while the Taliban in Afghanistan (down one at 122nd) and some Buddhist fundamentalists in Myanmar (down one at 139th) have no qualms about using violence to impose their world vision on the media.
Would we then see China’s “new world media order” within the next 10 years? And how would the world be engaged in that “new trust” given the ever-rising China post-Covid-19?
The writer is a professor at the International Ins titute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, International Islamic University Malaysia (ISTAC-IIUM), and also visiting professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times