According to the report, press freedom is deteriorating worldwide; worsening for Not Free states (Eurasia + Middle East/North Africa) combined with a negative trend among Free States, notably across Europe. Can you expand on these overall findings, and its impact on the state of democracy in those countries?
So we've been tracking a decline in global press freedom for a decade. And this has tracked very closely with an overall decline in political rights and civil liberties around the world. The declines in press freedom, as you mentioned, are primarily in Europe, which are among the best performing countries in the world and in Eurasia and MENA (Middle East and North Africa), which are among the worst. So we're seeing it at the two ends of the spectrum. It's especially concerning, not just because press freedom is a fundamental freedom in itself, but because of its implications for democracy. On the other hand, we do see some signs of hope and some signs of a rejuvenation of the media in countries that have had a turning point. And so you can definitely see that press freedom cannot be repressed forever. And there are always people who are fighting to bring it back.
Are we seeing more of the same tactics of the past (e.g. violence, harassment); or are there more nuanced efforts to undermine journalistic independence? And how do those tactics differ from Eurasia & MENA vs areas with generally more freedom, such as in European countries?
It's very different at the two ends of the spectrum. So at the lower end of the spectrum, we're seeing very familiar tactics: arrests of journalists, threats to their safety, repressive laws, defamation laws that criminalize free speech. But at the top end of the spectrum we are really seeing a lot of new tactics. These are democratically elected leaders who then manipulate the media in ways that are very subtle that enable them to take control of the message that is getting to the population.
Specific examples of countries engaging in these tactics more recently?
The kind of the classic examples of these countries would be Hungary, which has been doing this for a few years now. And Serbia also in Europe. Both those countries just dropped to partly free in our freedom in the world survey and have been at the forefront of new tactics for repressing the media. But we're also seeing this in democracies around the world, in India and Israel …and also here in the United States.
Here in the United States, which you call “the world’s leading democratic power,” you do mention “unusual pressure.” What’s the growing concern here, and is there any silver lining, given its high global press rating?
Ultimately here in the United States we have very robust protections for free speech. Our Constitution and the Supreme Court have upheld this for decades. But the kinds of attacks that we're seeing from the Trump administration are new and are very worrying. These are verbal attacks on journalists, threats to change libel laws, threats against individual media outlets. And this is part of what appears to be a trend of undermining the respect that the government has for the role that the media as opposed to play in holding leaders to account. Certainly there is a lot of optimism in this country. I mean the mainstream media, the major news media have been really strong in pushing back against these attacks and in continuing to publish information that holds leaders to account. But the concern is that norms may be changing and that it will be difficult to get back to where we were before.
Would you consider this unchartered territory; U.S. legal protections on steady ground?
So the legal protections are absolutely, they're still there. And I don't want to say that this is the worst moment of U.S. press freedom because we've been through many, many trying times. But it is definitely new in the postwar post -World War II era. And it's also because it does appear to be part of this global trend of right-wing populist leaders who come to power and attack the media. It's a concern that it will have long-term effects here in the United States and also on the ability of the U.S. to be a leader in setting an example around the world.
How much of independent news media’s problems in the west are due to the internet’s erosion of its independent business model? More news organizations are struggling to make money, continuing a long-running trend. Can independent, truth-seeking journalism exist without a viable business model to sustain it?