Journalism is the Foundation of Democracy. Too Bad It's Being Destroyed
There don't seem to be many options for the free press to flourish
There is a reason the United States Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.
When your journalists have a list of aproved subjects to cover and face penalties for crossing out of bounds, the citizens of your country are immediately set at a steep disadvantage. They depend on the news for information.
You can’t have an informed electorate without integrity in the press, and easy access to free news and information. When the government controls what information we see, we can no longer trust that we’re getting a clear picture.
It’s like that famous quote from 1984: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
Great book, by the way. Depressing as fuck, though.
Anyway, we know at this point that the U.S. Constitution is worth a wet pile of leaves as far as Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are concerned — they’re ripping that thing up for toilet paper every day.
They claim to love it, except for all the parts of it that they hate. Like the equal rights stuff. They hate that.
So we know that the press in the U.S. are more or less under control for fear of losing access, like I’ve pointed out before they essentially just parrot talking points that the President would approve of so they keep getting invited.
The real journalists, the ones who aren’t afraid to ask the hard questions, get shunned.
But while I’m harping on the U.S. right now — as most of us are, for obvious reasons — it’s not the only place in the world where this is happening. It’s everywhere.
Reporters Without Borders is an international nonprofit organization that helps protects journalists and reporters worldwide. They help when they get jailed for doing their jobs, back them up when their rights are threatened and provide support.
They keep a running survey year after year to keep their finger on the pulse of global press freedom.
And according to that index, we’re in trouble. Serious, frightening trouble.
Over half of the world’s countries are now in the danger zone for press freedom.
To quote from the article linked above:
The overall average score of all the countries assessed has never been so low.
In over half of the world’s countries and territories (52.2%), the state of press freedom is categorised as “difficult” or “very serious.” This category was a small minority (13.7%) in 2002.
In 2002, 20% of the global population lived in a country where the state of press freedom was categorised as “good.” Twenty-five years later, less than 1% of the world’s population lives in a country that falls under this category.
That’s not good. That’s a massive erosion of trust in one of democracy’s most basic and fundamental institutions, and it’s a huge blow to the global population.
As I said, without a free and open press with integrity and the right to pursue real journalism, how can you trust the news and information you hear?
This is the bad place, people. And this means we all need to be much, much more careful about where we’re getting our information.
Solidarity wins.