News Item

Healing words: how press freedom is being threatened by the coronavirus pandemic | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

Journalists are writing the first draft of history, frantically typing out their stories on what it means to have societies go into lockdown, as governments use the crisis as an opportunity to clamp down on the press.

In many cases the attack on press freedom has come from countries with a long history of censoring uncomfortable news. The IPI points out that in China, news websites have been shut down, social media protests criticising authorities have been clocked and citizen journalists have been targeted directly. But as this map from Index on Censorship, which has been monitoring COVID–19 related attacks on press freedom worldwide, shows, the erosions to press freedom are happening everywhere.

The types of attacks on press freedom can be divided roughly into five areas: a misuse of emergency legislation, a clampdown on ‘unpatriotic’ reporting, restrictions on travel and press passes, abuse of misinformation laws, and an attack on whistleblowers.

[…]

Source: Healing words: how press freedom is being threatened by the coronavirus pandemic | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism