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Category: press freedom

  • Trump silences Voice of America – end of a propaganda machine or void for China and Russia to fill?

    ANALYSIS: By Valerie A. Cooper, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    Of all the contradictions and ironies of Donald Trump’s second presidency so far, perhaps the most surprising has been his shutting down the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for being “radical propaganda”.

    Critics have long accused the agency — and its affiliated outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia — of being a propaganda arm of US foreign policy.

    But to the current president, the USAGM has become a promoter of “anti-American ideas” and agendas — including allegedly suppressing stories critical of Iran, sympathetically covering the issue of “white privilege” and bowing to pressure from China.

    Propaganda is clearly in the eye of the beholder. The Moscow Times reported Russian officials were elated by the demise of the “purely propagandistic” outlets, while China’s Global Times celebrated the closure of a “lie factory”.

    Meanwhile, the European Commission hailed USAGM outlets as a “beacon of truth, democracy and hope”. All of which might have left the average person understandably confused: Voice of America? Wasn’t that the US propaganda outlet from World War II?

    Well, yes. But the reality of USAGM and similar state-sponsored global media outlets is more complex — as are the implications of the US agency’s demise.

    Public service or state propaganda?
    The USAGM is one of several international public service media outlets based in Western democracies. Others include Australia’s ABC International, the BBC World Service, CBC/Radio-Canada, France Médias Monde, NHK-World Japan, Deutsche Welle in Germany and SRG SSR in Switzerland.

    Part of the Public Media Alliance, they are similar to national public service media, largely funded by taxpayers to uphold democratic ideals of universal access to news and information.

    Unlike national public media, however, they might not be consumed — or even known — by domestic audiences. Rather, they typically provide news to countries without reliable independent media due to censorship or state-run media monopolies.

    The USAGM, for example, provides news in 63 languages to more than 100 countries. It has been credited with bringing attention to issues such as protests against covid-19 lockdowns in China and women’s struggles for equal rights in Iran.

    On the other hand, the independence of USAGM outlets has been questioned often, particularly as they are required to share government-mandated editorials.

    Voice of America has been criticised for its focus on perceived ideological adversaries such as Russia and Iran. And my own research has found it perpetuates stereotypes and the neglect of African nations in its news coverage.

    Leaving a void
    Ultimately, these global media outlets wouldn’t exist if there weren’t benefits for the governments that fund them. Sharing stories and perspectives that support or promote certain values and policies is an effective form of “public diplomacy”.

    Yet these international media outlets differ from state-controlled media models because of editorial systems that protect them from government interference.

    The Voice of America’s “firewall”, for instance, “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news”. Such protections allow journalists to report on their own governments more objectively.

    In contrast, outlets such as China Media Group (CMG), RT from Russia, and PressTV from Iran also reach a global audience in a range of languages. But they do this through direct government involvement.

    CMG subsidiary CCTV+, for example, states it is “committed to telling China’s story to the rest of the world”.

    Though RT states it is an autonomous media outlet, research has found the Russian government oversees hiring editors, imposing narrative angles, and rejecting stories.

    Staff member with sign protesting in front of Voice of America sign.
    A Voice of America staffer protests outside the Washington DC offices on March 17, 2025, after employees were placed on administrative leave. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Other voices get louder
    The biggest concern for Western democracies is that these other state-run media outlets will fill the void the USAGM leaves behind — including in the Pacific.

    Russia, China and Iran are increasing funding for their state-run news outlets, with China having spent more than US$6.6 billion over 13 years on its global media outlets. China Media Group is already one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, providing news content to more than 130 countries in 44 languages.

    And China has already filled media gaps left by Western democracies: after the ABC stopped broadcasting Radio Australia in the Pacific, China Radio International took over its frequencies.

    Worryingly, the differences between outlets such as Voice of America and more overtly state-run outlets aren’t immediately clear to audiences, as government ownership isn’t advertised.

    An Australian senator even had to apologise recently after speaking with PressTV, saying she didn’t know the news outlet was affiliated with the Iranian government, or that it had been sanctioned in Australia.

    Switched off
    Trump’s move to dismantle the USAGM doesn’t come as a complete surprise, however. As the authors of Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America described, the first Trump administration failed in its attempts to remove the firewall and install loyalists.

    This perhaps explains why Trump has resorted to more drastic measures this time. And, as with many of the current administration’s legally dubious actions, there has been resistance.

    The American Foreign Service Association says it will challenge the dismantling of the USAGM, while the Czech Republic is seeking EU support to keep Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty on the air.

    But for many of the agency’s journalists, contractors, broadcasting partners and audiences, it may be too late. Last week, The New York Times reported some Voice of America broadcasts had already been replaced by music.The Conversation

    Dr Valerie A. Cooper is lecturer in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Trump silences Voice of America – end of a propaganda machine or void for China and Russia to fill?

    ANALYSIS: By Valerie A. Cooper, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    Of all the contradictions and ironies of Donald Trump’s second presidency so far, perhaps the most surprising has been his shutting down the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for being “radical propaganda”.

    Critics have long accused the agency — and its affiliated outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia — of being a propaganda arm of US foreign policy.

    But to the current president, the USAGM has become a promoter of “anti-American ideas” and agendas — including allegedly suppressing stories critical of Iran, sympathetically covering the issue of “white privilege” and bowing to pressure from China.

    Propaganda is clearly in the eye of the beholder. The Moscow Times reported Russian officials were elated by the demise of the “purely propagandistic” outlets, while China’s Global Times celebrated the closure of a “lie factory”.

    Meanwhile, the European Commission hailed USAGM outlets as a “beacon of truth, democracy and hope”. All of which might have left the average person understandably confused: Voice of America? Wasn’t that the US propaganda outlet from World War II?

    Well, yes. But the reality of USAGM and similar state-sponsored global media outlets is more complex — as are the implications of the US agency’s demise.

    Public service or state propaganda?
    The USAGM is one of several international public service media outlets based in Western democracies. Others include Australia’s ABC International, the BBC World Service, CBC/Radio-Canada, France Médias Monde, NHK-World Japan, Deutsche Welle in Germany and SRG SSR in Switzerland.

    Part of the Public Media Alliance, they are similar to national public service media, largely funded by taxpayers to uphold democratic ideals of universal access to news and information.

    Unlike national public media, however, they might not be consumed — or even known — by domestic audiences. Rather, they typically provide news to countries without reliable independent media due to censorship or state-run media monopolies.

    The USAGM, for example, provides news in 63 languages to more than 100 countries. It has been credited with bringing attention to issues such as protests against covid-19 lockdowns in China and women’s struggles for equal rights in Iran.

    On the other hand, the independence of USAGM outlets has been questioned often, particularly as they are required to share government-mandated editorials.

    Voice of America has been criticised for its focus on perceived ideological adversaries such as Russia and Iran. And my own research has found it perpetuates stereotypes and the neglect of African nations in its news coverage.

    Leaving a void
    Ultimately, these global media outlets wouldn’t exist if there weren’t benefits for the governments that fund them. Sharing stories and perspectives that support or promote certain values and policies is an effective form of “public diplomacy”.

    Yet these international media outlets differ from state-controlled media models because of editorial systems that protect them from government interference.

    The Voice of America’s “firewall”, for instance, “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news”. Such protections allow journalists to report on their own governments more objectively.

    In contrast, outlets such as China Media Group (CMG), RT from Russia, and PressTV from Iran also reach a global audience in a range of languages. But they do this through direct government involvement.

    CMG subsidiary CCTV+, for example, states it is “committed to telling China’s story to the rest of the world”.

    Though RT states it is an autonomous media outlet, research has found the Russian government oversees hiring editors, imposing narrative angles, and rejecting stories.

    Staff member with sign protesting in front of Voice of America sign.
    A Voice of America staffer protests outside the Washington DC offices on March 17, 2025, after employees were placed on administrative leave. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Other voices get louder
    The biggest concern for Western democracies is that these other state-run media outlets will fill the void the USAGM leaves behind — including in the Pacific.

    Russia, China and Iran are increasing funding for their state-run news outlets, with China having spent more than US$6.6 billion over 13 years on its global media outlets. China Media Group is already one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, providing news content to more than 130 countries in 44 languages.

    And China has already filled media gaps left by Western democracies: after the ABC stopped broadcasting Radio Australia in the Pacific, China Radio International took over its frequencies.

    Worryingly, the differences between outlets such as Voice of America and more overtly state-run outlets aren’t immediately clear to audiences, as government ownership isn’t advertised.

    An Australian senator even had to apologise recently after speaking with PressTV, saying she didn’t know the news outlet was affiliated with the Iranian government, or that it had been sanctioned in Australia.

    Switched off
    Trump’s move to dismantle the USAGM doesn’t come as a complete surprise, however. As the authors of Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America described, the first Trump administration failed in its attempts to remove the firewall and install loyalists.

    This perhaps explains why Trump has resorted to more drastic measures this time. And, as with many of the current administration’s legally dubious actions, there has been resistance.

    The American Foreign Service Association says it will challenge the dismantling of the USAGM, while the Czech Republic is seeking EU support to keep Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty on the air.

    But for many of the agency’s journalists, contractors, broadcasting partners and audiences, it may be too late. Last week, The New York Times reported some Voice of America broadcasts had already been replaced by music.The Conversation

    Dr Valerie A. Cooper is lecturer in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Tell the world the truth,’ father tells dead son as Israel kills two journalists

    Pacific Media Watch

    Global media freedom groups have condemned the Israeli occupation forces for assassinating two more Palestinian journalists covering the Gaza genocide, taking the media death toll in the besieged enclave to at least 208 since the war started.

    Journalist and contributor to the Qatari-based Al Jazeera Mubasher, Hossam Shabat, is the latest to have been killed.

    Witnesses said Hossam’s vehicle was hit in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya. Several pedestrians were also wounded, reports Al Jazeera.

    in a statement, Al Jazeera condemned the killings, saying Hossam had joined the network’s journalists and correspondents killed during the ongoing war on Gaza, including Samer Abudaqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, Ismail Al-Ghoul, and Ahmed Al-Louh.

    Al Jazeera affirmed its commitment to pursue all legal measures to “prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes against journalists”.

    The network also said it stood in “unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza and reaffirms its commitment to achieving justice” by prosecuting the killers of more than 200 journalists in Gaza since October 2023.

    The network extended its condolences to Hossam’s family, and called on all human rights and media organisations to condemn the Israeli occupation’s systematic killing of journalists.

    Hossam was the second journalist killed in Gaza yesterday.

    House targeted
    Earlier, the Israeli military killed Mohammad Mansour, a correspondent for the Beirut-based Palestine Today television, in an attack targeting a house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

    A fellow journalist circulated a video clip of Mansour’s father bidding farewell to his son with heartbreaking words, putting a microphone in his son’s hand and urging the voice that once conveyed the truth to a deaf world.

    “Stand up and speak, tell the world, you are the one who tells the truth, for the image alone is not enough,” the father said through tears.

    Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), condemned the killings, describing them as war crimes.

    The CPJ called for an independent international investigation into whether they were deliberately targeted.

    “CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said CPJ’s programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.

    The two latest journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza . . . Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat (left) and Mohammad Mansour
    The two latest journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza . . . Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat (left) and Mohammad Mansour of Palestine Today. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Nightmare has to end’
    “This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour, whose killings may have been targeted.”

    Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza on March 18, ending a ceasefire that began on January 19.

    The occupation forces continued bombarding Gaza for an eighth consecutive day, killing at least 23 people in predawn attacks including seven children.

    Al Jazeera reports that the world ignores calls "to stop this madness"
    Al Jazeera reports that the world ignores calls “to stop this madness” as Israel kills dozens in Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    A UN official, Olga Cherevko, said Israel’s unhindered attacks on Gaza were a “bloody stain on our collective consciousness”, noting “our calls for this madness to stop have gone unheeded” by the world.

    Gaza’s Health Ministry said 792 people had been killed and 1663 injured in the week since Israel resumed its war on the Strip.

    The total death toll since the war started on October 7, 2023, has risen to 50,144, while 113,704 people have been injured, it said.

    West Bank ‘news desert’
    Meanwhile, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the repression of reporters in the West Bank and East Jerusalem had intensified in recent months despite the recent ceasefire in Gaza before it collapsed.

    In the eastern Palestinian territories, Israeli armed forces have shot at journalists, arrested them and restricted their movement.

    The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has detained Al Jazeera journalists.

    RSF warned of a growing crackdown, which was transforming the region into a “news desert”.

    One of the co-directors of the Palestinian Oscar-winning film No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, has been detained by Israeli forces. It happened after he was attacked by a mob of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

    He was in an ambulance receiving treatment when the doors were opened and he was abducted by the Israeli military. Colleagues say he has “disappeared”.

    A number of American activists were also attacked, and video on social media showed them fleeing the settler violence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Duterte’s arrest gives ‘a sense impunity ends’, says Nobel peace prize winner

    Maria Ressa says rules-based order ‘can perhaps still exist’ but social media is being used to undermine democracy around the world

    The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is a welcome sign that the rules-based order continues to hold, the Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has said, even as the global order has been marred by the US “descending into hell” at the hands of the same forces that consumed the Philippines.

    Ressa’s remarks came after Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, made his first appearance before the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, accused of committing crimes against humanity during his brutal “war on drugs”.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Free press under threat in US – Columbia J-School speaks out

    Columbia Journalism School

    Freedom of the press — a bedrock principle of American democracy — is under threat in the United States.

    Here at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism we are witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill. We write to affirm our commitment to supporting and exercising First Amendment rights for students, faculty, and staff on our campus — and, indeed, for all.

    After Homeland Security seized and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs, without charging him with any crime, many of our international students have felt afraid to come to classes and to events on campus.

    They are right to be worried. Some of our faculty members and students who have covered the protests over the Gaza war have been the object of smear campaigns and targeted on the same sites that were used to bring Khalil to the attention of Homeland Security.

    President Trump has warned that the effort to deport Khalil is just the first of many.

    These actions represent threats against political speech and the ability of the American press to do its essential job and are part of a larger design to silence voices that are out of favour with the current administration.

    We have also seen reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to deport the Palestinian poet and journalist Mosab Abu Toha, who has written extensively in the New Yorker about the condition of the residents of Gaza and warned of the mortal danger to Palestinian journalists.

    There are 13 million legal foreign residents (green card holders) in the United States. If the administration can deport Khalil, it means those 13 million people must live in fear if they dare speak up or publish something that runs afoul of government views.

    There are more than one million international students in the United States. They, too, may worry that they are no longer free to speak their mind. Punishing even one person for their speech is meant to intimidate others into self-censorship.

    One does not have to agree with the political opinions of any particular individual to understand that these threats cut to the core of what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy. The use of deportation to suppress foreign critics runs parallel to an aggressive campaign to use libel laws in novel — even outlandish ways — to silence or intimidate the independent press.

    The President has sued CBS for an interview with Kamala Harris which Trump found too favourable. He has sued the Pulitzer Prize committee for awarding prizes to stories critical of him.

    He has even sued the Des Moines Register for publishing the results of a pre-election poll that showed Kamala Harris ahead at that point in the state.

    Large corporations like Disney and Meta settled lawsuits most lawyers thought they could win because they did not want to risk the wrath of the Trump administration and jeopardize business they have with the federal government.

    Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided that the paper’s editorial pages would limit themselves to pieces celebrating “free markets and individual liberties.”

    Meanwhile, the Trump administration insists on hand-picking the journalists who will be permitted to cover the White House and Pentagon, and it has banned the Associated Press from press briefings because the AP is following its own style book and refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

    The Columbia Journalism School stands in defence of First Amendment principles of free speech and free press across the political spectrum. The actions we’ve outlined above jeopardise these principles and therefore the viability of our democracy. All who believe in these freedoms should steadfastly oppose the intimidation, harassment, and detention of individuals on the basis of their speech or their journalism.

    The Faculty of Columbia Journalism School
    New York

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Former Filipino Duterte’s arrest by the ICC – 20 journalists killed during his presidency

    Pacific Media Watch

    Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has recalled that 20 journalists were killed during the six-year Philippines presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, a regime marked by fierce repression of the press.

    Former president Duterte was arrested earlier this week as part of an International Criminal Court investigation into crimes against humanity linked to his merciless war on drugs. He is now in The Hague awaiting trial.

    The watchdog has called on the administration of current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to take strong measures to fully restore the country’s press freedom and combat impunity for the crimes against media committed by Duterte’s regime.

    “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch,” Rodrigo Duterte said in his inauguration speech on 30 June 2016, which set the tone for the rest of his mandate — unrestrained violence against journalists and total disregard for press freedom, said RSF in a statement.

    During the Duterte regime’s rule, RSF recorded 20 cases of journalists killed while working.

    Among them was Jesus Yutrago Malabanan, shot dead after covering Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war for Reuters.

    Online harassment surged, particularly targeting women journalists.

    Maria Ressa troll target
    The most prominent victim was Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the news site Rappler, who faced an orchestrated hate campaign led by troll armies allied with the government in response to her commitment to exposing the then-president’s bloody war.

    Media outlets critical of President Duterte’s authoritarian excesses were systematically muzzled: the country’s leading television network, ABS-CBN, was forced to shut down; Rappler and Maria Ressa faced repeated lawsuits; and a businessman close to the president took over the country’s leading newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, raising concerns over its editorial independence.

    “The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is good news for the Filipino journalism community, who were the direct targets of his campaign of terror,” said RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani.

    RSF's Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani
    RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani . . . “the Filipino journalism community were the direct targets of [former president Rodrigo Duterte]’s campaign of terror.” Image: RSF
    “President Marcos and his administration must immediately investigate Duterte’s past crimes and take strong measures to fully restore the country’s press freedom.”

    The repression carried out during Duterte’s tenure continues to impact on Filipino journalism: investigative journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio has been languishing in prison since her arrest in 2020, still awaiting a verdict in her trial for “financing terrorism” and “illegal possession of firearms” — trumped-up charges that could see her sentenced to 40 years in prison.

    With 147 journalists murdered since the restoration of democracy in 1986, the Philippines remains one of the deadliest countries for media workers.

    The republic ranked 134th out of 180 in the 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

    Source report from Reporters Without Borders. Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gavin Ellis: Canadian billionaire must explain his designs on NZME – now

    COMMENTARY: By Gavin Ellis

    New Zealand-based Canadian billionaire James Grenon owes the people of this country an immediate explanation of his intentions regarding media conglomerate NZME. This cannot wait until a shareholders’ meeting at the end of April.

    Is his investment in the owner of The New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB nothing more than a money-making venture to realise the value of its real estate marketing subsidiary? Has he no more interest than putting his share of the proceeds from spinning off OneRoof into a concealed safe in his $15 million Takapuna mansion?

    Or does he intent to leverage his 9.6 percent holding and the support of other investors to take over the board (if not the company) in order to dictate the editorial direction of the country’s largest newspaper and its number one commercial radio station?

    Grenon has said little beyond the barest of announcements that have been released by the New Zealand Stock Exchange. While he must exercise care to avoid triggering statutory takeover obligations, he cannot simply treat NZME as another of the private equity projects that have made him very wealthy. He is dealing with an entity whose influence and obligations extend far beyond the crude world of finance.

    While I do not presume for one moment that he reads this column each week, let me suspend disbelief for a moment and speak directly to him.

    Come clean and tell the people of New Zealand what you are doing and, more importantly, why.

    Over the past week there has been considerable speculation over the answers to those questions. Much of it has drawn on what little we know of James Grenon. And it is precious little beyond two facts.

    Backed right-wing Centrist
    The first is that he put money behind the launch of a right-wing New Zealand news aggregation website, The Centrist, although he apparently no longer has a financial interest in it.

    The second fact is that he provided financial support for conservative activists taking legal action against New Zealand media.

    When I contacted a well-connected friend in Canada to ask about Grenon the response was short: “Never heard of him . . . and there aren’t that many Canadian billionaires.”

    In short, the man who potentially may hold sway over the board of one of our biggest media companies has a very low profile indeed. That is a luxury to which he can no longer lay claim.

    It may be that his interest is, after all, a financial one based on his undoubted investment skills. He may see a lucrative opportunity in OneRoof. After all, Fairfax’s public listing and subsequent sale of its Australian equivalent, Domain, provided not only a useful cash boost for shareholders but the creation of a stand-alone entity that now has a market cap of about $A2.8 billion.

    Perhaps he wants a board cleanout to guarantee a OneRoof float.

    If so, say so.

    Similar transactions
    Although spinning off OneRoof could have dire consequences for the viability of what would be left of NZME, that is a decision no different to similar transactions made by many companies in the financial interests of shareholders.

    There is a world of difference, however, between seizing an investment opportunity and seeking to secure influence by dictating the editorial direction of a significant portion of our news media.

    If the speculation is correct — and the billionaire is seeking to steer NZME on an editorial course to the right — New Zealand has a problem.

    Communications minister Paul Goldsmith gave a lamely neoliberal response reported by Stuff last week: He was “happy to take some advice” on the development, but NZME was a “private company” and ultimately it was up to its shareholders to determine how it operated.

    Let me repeat my earlier point: NZME is an entity whose influence and obligations extend far beyond the crude world of finance (and the outworn concept that the market can rule). Its stewardship of the vehicles at the forefront of news dissemination and opinion formation means it must meet higher obligation than what we expect of an ordinary “private company”.

    The most fundamental of those obligations is the independence of editorial decision-making and direction.

    I became editor of The New Zealand Herald shortly after Wilson & Horton was sold to Irish businessman Tony O’Reilly. On my appointment the then chief executive of O’Reilly’s Independent News & Media, Liam Healy, said the board had only one editorial requirement of me: That I would not advocate the use of violence as a legitimate means to a political end.

    Only direction echoed Mandela
    Coming from a man who had witnessed the effects of such violence in Northern Ireland, I had no difficulty in acceding to his request. And throughout my entire editorship, the only “request” made of me by O’Reilly himself was that I would support the distribution of generic Aids drugs in Africa. It followed a meeting he had had with Nelson Mandela. I had no other direction from the board.

    Yes, I had to bat away requests by management personnel (who should have known better) to “do this” or “not do that” but, without exception, the attempts were commercially driven — they did not want to upset advertisers. There was never a political or ideological motive behind them. Nor were such requests limited to me.

    I doubt there is an editor in the country who has not had a manager asking for something to please an advertiser. Disappointment hasn’t deterred their trying.

    In this column last week, I wrote of the dangers of a rich owner (in that case Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos) dictating editorial policy. The dangers if James Grenon has similar intentions would be even greater, given NZME’s share of the news market.

    The journalists’ union, E tu, has already concluded that the Canadian’s intention is to gain right-wing influence. Its director, Michael Wood, issued a statement in which he said: “The idea that a shadowy cabal, backed by extreme wealth, is planning to take over such an important institution in our democratic fabric should be of concern to all New Zealanders.”

    He called on the current NZME board to re-affirm a commitment to editorial independence.

    Michael Wood reflects the fears that are rightly held by NZME’s journalists. They, too, will doubtless be looking for assurances of editorial independence.

    ‘Cast-iron’ guarantees?
    Such assurances are vital, but those journalists should look back to some “cast-iron” guarantees given by other rich new owners if they are to avoid history repeating itself.

    I investigated such guarantees in a book I wrote titled Trust Ownership and the Future of News: Media Moguls and White Knights. In it I noted that 20 years before Rupert Murdoch purchased The Times of London, there was a warning that the newspaper’s editor “far from having his independence guaranteed, is on paper entirely in the hands of the Chief Proprietors who are specifically empowered by the Articles of Association to control editorial policy”, although there was provision for a “committee of notables” to veto the transfer of shares into undesirable hands.

    To satisfy the British government, Murdoch gave guarantees of editorial independence and a “court of appeal” role for independent directors. Neither proved worth the paper they were written on.

    In contrast, the constitution of the company that owns The Economist does not permit any individual or organisation to gain a majority shareholding. The editor exercises independent editorial control and is appointed by trustees, who are independent of commercial, political and proprietorial influences.

    There are no such protections in the constitution, board charter, or code of conduct and ethics governing NZME. And it is doubtful that any cast-iron guarantees could be inserted in advance of the company’s annual general meeting.

    If James Grenon does, in fact, have designs on the editorial direction of NZME, it is difficult to see how he might be prevented from achieving his aim.

    Statutory guarantees would be unprecedented and, in any case, sit well outside the mindset of a coalition government that has shown no inclination to intervene in a deteriorating media market. Nonetheless, Minister Goldsmith would be well advised to address the issue with a good deal more urgency.

    He might, at the very least, press the Canadian billionaire on his intentions.

    And if the coalition thinks a swing to the right in our news media would be no bad thing, it should be very careful what it wishes for.

    If the Canadian’s intentions are as Michael Wood suspects, perhaps the only hope will lie with those shareholders who see that it will be in their own financial interests to ensure that, in aggregate, NZME’s news assets continue to steer a (relatively) middle course. For proof, they need look only at the declining subscriber base of The Washington Post.

    Postscipt
    On Wednesday, The New Zealand Herald stated James Grenon had provided further detail, of his intentions. It is clear that he does, in fact, intend to play a role in the editorial side of NZME.

    Just how hands-on he would be remains to be seen. However, he told the Herald that, if successful in making it on to the NZME board, he expected an editorial board would be established “with representation from both sides of the spectrum”.

    On the surface that looks reassuring but editorial boards elsewhere have also been used to serve the ends of a proprietor while giving the appearance of independence.

    And just what role would an editorial board play? Would it determine the editorial direction that an editor would have to slavishly follow? Or would it be a shield protecting the editor’s independence?

    Only time will tell.

    Devil in the detail
    Media Insider columnist Shayne Currie, writing in the Weekend Herald, stated that “the Herald’s dominance has come through once again in quarterly Nielsen readership results . . . ” That is perfectly true: The newspaper’s average issue readership is more than four times that of its closest competitor.

    What the Insider did not say was that the Herald’s readership had declined by 32,000 over the past year — from 531,000 to 499,000 — and by 14,000 since the last quarterly survey.

    The Waikato Times, The Post and the Otago Daily Times were relatively stable while The Press was down 11,000 year-on-year but only 1000 since the last survey.

    In the weekend market, the Sunday Star Times was down 1000 readers year-on-year to stand at 180,000 and up slightly on the last survey. The Herald on Sunday was down 6000 year-on-year to sit at 302,000.

    There was a little good news in the weekly magazine market. The New Zealand Listener has gained 5000 readers year-on-year and now has a readership of 207,000. In the monthly market, Mindfood increased its readership by 15,000 over the same period and now sits at 222,000.

    The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly continues to dominate the women’s magazine market. It was slightly up on the last survey but well down year-on-year, dropping from 458,000 to 408,000. Woman’s Day had an even greater annual decline, falling from 380,000 to 317,000.

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. This article was published first on his Knightly Views website on 11 March 2025 and is republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CPJ, partners urge FCC to stop threatening press freedom and free speech

    The Committee to Protect Journalists and 16 other organizations, led by the nonprofit group Public Knowledge, sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr on March 7, expressing concern about recent developments that threaten to erode long-established safeguards for editorial independence and free expression.

    The agency recently launched investigations into public broadcasting for allegedly airing advertising and threatening to investigate the northern California radio station KCBS after it reported on planned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. FCC investigations can result in fines and license revocations, undermining the ability of news organizations to operate freely and without fear of government retaliation.

    The signatories underscored that a free press requires the FCC to uphold journalistic independence with impartiality and without political bias, and urged Carr to commit to:

    • requiring clear evidence of wrongdoing before launching investigations;
    • reaffirming the FCC’s commitment to protecting, not pressuring, editorial independence;
    • ensuring that any oversight actions are based on clear, objective criteria, not speculative political considerations; and
    • maintaining a clear boundary between government regulation and newsroom decisions.

    Read the letter here.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vanuatu mourns loss of iconic Pacific media pioneer Marc Neil-Jones

    OBITUARY: By Terence Malapa in Port Vila

    Vanuatu’s media community was in mourning today following the death on Monday of Marc Neil-Jones, founder of the Trading Post Vanuatu, which later became the Vanuatu Daily Post, and also radio 96BuzzFM. He was 67.

    His fearless pursuit of press freedom and dedication to truth have left an indelible mark on the country’s media landscape.

    Neil-Jones’s journey began in 1989 when he arrived in Vanuatu from the United Kingdom with just $8000, an early Macintosh computer, and an Apple laser printer.

    It was only four years after Cyclone Uma had ravaged the country, and he was determined to create something that would stand the test of time — a voice for independent journalism.

    In 1993, Neil-Jones succeeded in convincing then Prime Minister Maxime Carlot Korman to grant permission to launch the Trading Post, the country’s first independent newspaper. Prior to this, the media was under tight government control, and there had been no platform for critical or independent reporting.

    The Trading Post was a bold step toward change. Neil-Jones’s decision to start the newspaper, with its unapologetically independent voice, was driven by his desire to provide the people of Vanuatu with the truth, no matter how difficult or controversial.

    This was a turning point for the country’s media, and his dedication to fairness and transparency quickly made his newspaper a staple in the community.

    Blend of passion, wit and commitment
    Marc Neil-Jones’s blend of passion, wit, and unyielding commitment to press freedom became the foundation upon which the Vanuatu Trading Post evolved. The paper grew, expanded, and ultimately rebranded as the Vanuatu Daily Post, but Marc’s vision remained constant — to provide a platform for honest journalism and to hold power to account.

    His ability to navigate the challenges that came with being an independent voice in a country where media freedom was still in its infancy is a testament to his resilience and determination.

    Marc Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career
    Marc Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career — imprisonment, deportation, threats, and physical attacks — but he never wavered. Image: Del Abcede/Asia Pacific Report

    Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career — imprisonment, deportation, threats, and physical attacks — but he never wavered. His sense of fairness and his commitment to truth were unwavering, even when the challenges seemed insurmountable.

    His personal integrity and passion for his work left a lasting impact on the development of independent journalism in Vanuatu, ensuring that the country’s media continued to evolve and grow despite the odds.

    Marc Neil-Jones’ legacy is immeasurable. He not only created a platform for independent news in Vanuatu, but he also became a symbol of resilience and a staunch defender of press freedom.


    Marc Neil-Jones explaining how he used his radio journalism as a “guide” in the Secret Garden in 2016. Video: David Robie

    His work has influenced generations of journalists, and his fight for the truth has shaped the media landscape in the Pacific.

    As we remember Marc Neil-Jones, we also remember the Trading Post — the paper that started it all and grew into an institution that continues to uphold the values of fairness, integrity, and transparency.

    Marc Neil-Jones’s work has changed the course of Vanuatu’s media history, and his contributions will continue to inspire those who fight for the freedom of the press in the Pacific and beyond.

    Rest in peace, Marc Neil-Jones. Your legacy will live on in every headline, every report, and every story told with truth and integrity.

    Terence Malapa is publisher of Vanuatu Politics and Home News.

    Photojournalist Ben Bohane’s tribute
    Vale Marc Neil-Jones, media pioneer and kava enthusiast who passed away last night. He fought for and normalised media freedom in Vanuatu through his Daily Post newspaper with business partner Gene Wong and a great bunch of local journalists.

    Reporting the Pacific can sometimes be a body contact sport and Marc had the lumps to prove it. It was Marc who brought me to Vanuatu to work as founding editor for the regional Pacific Weekly Review in 2002 and I never left.

    The newspaper didn’t last but our friendship did.

    He was a humane and eccentric character who loved journalism and the botanical garden he ran with long time partner Jenny.

    Rest easy mate, there will be many shells of kava raised in your honour today.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gavin Ellis: Amazon founder Bezos dims lights on democracy

    COMMENTARY: By Gavin Ellis

    Little more than a month into the new US presidency, The Washington Post’s owner dimmed the light on a motto that became a beacon for freedom during the first Trump administration.

    “Democracy dies in darkness” has appeared below Washington Post for the past eight years.

    Last month it was powdered in irony after the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, decreed in an email to staff that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome.

    Amazon founder Bezos had already sullied the Post’s reputation by refusing to allow it to endorse a candidate during the presidential election — an action capable of no other interpretation than support for Donald Trump.

    Since then, there has been a US$1 million Amazon contribution to Trump’s inauguration and, according to the Wall Street Journal, a US$40 million deal with First Lady Melania Trump for an authorised documentary to be run on Amazon’s streaming service.

    Now Bezos has openly bowed before the new emperor and dimmed The Washington Post’s lights.

    Martin Baron, editor of the Post when the democracy motto — the first in the newspaper’s 140-year history — was adopted, last month described Bezos’s directive as a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression”.

    Standing up to Trump
    Two years after the slogan appeared on the Post masthead, a former editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson, published a book titled Merchants of Truth. In it she praised Bezos (who had bought the Washington newspaper six years earlier) for his support of Baron in standing up to Donald Trump’s assaults on the media and his serial falsehoods.

    However, she also made a prediction.

    “Though it hadn’t yet happened, it seemed all but inevitable that the Post’s coverage would one day bring Bezos’s commitment to freedom of the press into conflict with Amazon’s commercial interests, given the company’s size and power as it competed with Apple to become America’s first trillion-dollar conglomerate.”

    That day has come.

    It is patently obvious that Jeff Bezos puts the interests of his US$2 trillion Amazon empire ahead of a newspaper that last year lost US$100 million. In the process he has trashed the Post and turned readers against it.

    In the 24 hours after last month’s email was revealed, it lost 75,000 online subscribers. It had already shed close to 300,000 when the refusal to endorse a presidential candidate was revealed (I was one of them).

    It is unsurprising that he puts an enormously profitable enterprise ahead of one that is costing him money. However, rather than risking the future of a fine newspaper, he could have sought a buyer for it.

    He could even afford to sell it for one dollar to staff or to an individual who has a stronger commitment to the principles of free speech than he can now muster. He has done neither.

    Chilling effect
    Instead, he is prepared to modify content to make The Washington Post more acceptable to the White House in order to protect — perhaps even enhance — his other interests. That will have a chilling effect on the journalists he employs.

    In an industry that has lost more than 8000 newsroom roles over the past three years, fear for your job can be a powerful inducement to conform.

    An analysis of Bezos’ current strategy by the Wall Street Journal (which paid more attention to commercial interests than journalistic principles) suggested that Bezos had already paid a very high price for being perceived by Trump as an enemy during his first term.

    “In 2019, the cost of crossing Trump and funding the Resistance became staggeringly clear to Bezos. Amazon lost out to rival Microsoft on a mammoth $10 billion cloud-computing contract issued by the Pentagon.

    “It was a surprising decision since Amazon Web Services was the industry leader in cloud computing and was judged by many to have presented a stronger bid. This time around, the risks to Bezos appear far greater. Trump 2.0 is faster, more ruthless and more skilled at pulling the levers of government power.

    “Amazon is vulnerable on many fronts — from antitrust to contracts.”

    An even higher price could be paid, however, by the people of the United States (and beyond) as Trump uses those levers to diminish the ability of news media to hold him to account.

    Press Corps manipulation
    His manipulation of the make-up of the White House Press Corps has been another example. The White House Correspondents Association has been stripped of its role in deciding which journalists have access to the president. Not only has this resulted in the ascendancy of Trump acolytes like Brian Glenn of Real America Voice but America’s pre-eminent wire service, the Associated Press, has been ejected from the Press Pool.

    Ostensibly, the ban was due to the AP refusing to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its copy. It is far more likely, however, that the wire service’s balanced coverage and quest for accuracy stands in the way of Trumpian disinformation.

    And, of course, his war on words even goes beyond the media to stripping government websites of words, phrases and ideas that challenge or complicate the administration’s views.

    I agree with a New York Times editorial that characterised these actions as Orwellian — protecting free speech requires controlling free speech. It said the approach was “deliberate and dangerous.” It labelled Trump’s moves to control not only the flow of information but the way it was presented as “an expansive crackdown on free expression and disfavoured speakers that should be decried not just as hypocritical (Trump and his supporters advocate a form of free speech absolutism) but also as un-American and unconstitutional”.

    These are strong words. Sadly, they have yet to result in a mass movement to restore sanity.

    And that leaves me at a loss to understand what in Hell’s name has happened to principled people in the United States. If I (and many like me) are affronted by what is happening far from here, why are we not hearing a mass of voices demanding a stop to actions that threaten not only the United States’ international reputation but the very fabric of its society?

    Orwell on truth
    In 1941, George Orwell made a radio broadcast on truthfulness that may have awful portents for Americans. In it he said:

    “Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age. And it is important to realise that its control of thought is not only negative but also positive. It not only forbids you to express — even to think — certain thoughts but it dictates what you shall think, it creates an ideology for you, it tries to govern your emotional life as well as setting up a code of conduct. And as far as possible it isolates you from the outside world, it shuts you up in an artificial universe in which you have no standards of comparison.”

    That, I suspect, would be music to Donald Trump’s ears. And Jeff Bezos’s dictating the limits of what is acceptable on The Washington Post’s op/ed pages is one tiny step it that direction.

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. This article was published first on his Knightly Views website on 4 March 2025 and is republished with permission.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kurdish Women Journalists Who Work Under Constant Threat Have Lessons to Share

    This January, a Turkish court sentenced Sofya Alağaş, a Kurdish journalist and elected co-mayor of Siirt municipality, to six years and three months in prison on charges of membership in a terror organization. “I honestly don’t know how it will end,” Alağaş told Truthout. “The sentence was not a legal decision but a political one. If the Turkish state takes some steps towards democratization…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Union wary of Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon’s NZ media influence

    By Susan Edmunds, RNZ News money correspondent

    The Aotearoa New Zealand union representing many of NZME’s journalists says it is “deeply worried” by a billionaire’s plans to take over its board.

    Auckland-based Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon is leading a move to dump the board of media company NZME, owners of The New Zealand Herald and NewsTalk ZB.

    He has told the company’s board he wants to remove most of the current directors, replace them with himself and three others, and choose one existing director to stay on.

    He took a nearly 10 percent stake in the business earlier in the week.

    Michael Wood, negotiation specialist at E tū, the union that represents NZME’s journalists, said he had grave concerns.

    “We see a pattern that has been incredibly unhealthy in other countries, of billionaire oligarchs moving into media ownership roles to be able to promote their own particular view of the word,” he said.

    “Secondly, we have a situation here where when Mr Grenon purchased holdings in NZME he was at pains to make it sound like an innocent manoeuvre with no broader agenda . . .  within a few days he is aggressively pursuing board positions.”

    What unsaid agendas?
    Wood said Grenon had a track record of trying to influence media discourse in New Zealand.

    “We are deeply concerned about this, about what unsaid agendas lie behind a billionaire oligarch trying to take ownership of one of our biggest media companies.”

    James Grenon.
    Canadian billionaire James Grenon . . . track record of trying to influence media discourse in New Zealand. Image: TOM Capital Management/RNZ

    “We are deeply concerned about this, about what unsaid agendas lie behind a billionaire oligarch trying to take ownership of one of our biggest media companies.”

    He said it would be important for New Zealand not to follow the example of the US, where media outlets had become “the mouthpiece for the rich and powerful”.

    E tū would consult its national delegate committee of journalists, he said.

    Grenon has been linked with alternative news sites, including The Centrist, serving as the company’s director up to August 2023.

    The Centrist claims to present under-served perspectives and reason-based analysis, “even if it might be too hot for the mainstream media to handle”.

    Grenon has been approached for comment by RNZ.

    Preoccupations with trans rights, treaty issues
    Duncan Greive, founder of The Spinoff and media commentator, said he was a reader of Grenon’s site The Centrist.

    “The main thing we know about him is that publication,” Greive said.

    “It’s largely news aggregation but it has very specific preoccupations around trans rights, treaty issues and particularly vaccine injury and efficacy.

    “A lot of the time it’s aggregating from mainstream news sites but there’s a definite feel that things are under-covered or under-emphasised at mainstream news organisations.

    “If he is looking to gain greater control and exert influence on the publishing and editorial aspects of the business, you’ve got to think there is a belief that those things are under-covered and the editorial direction of The Herald isn’t what he would like it to be.”

    Duncan Grieve
    The Spinoff founder and media commentator Duncan Greive . . . Investors “would be excited about the sale of OneRoof”. Image: RNZ News

    Greive said the move could be connected to the NZME announcement in its annual results that it was exploring options for the sale of its real estate platform OneRoof.

    “There are a lot of investors who believe OneRoof is being held back by proximity to the ‘legacy media’ assets of NZME and if it could be pulled out of there the two businesses would be more valuable separate than together.

    “If you look at the shareholder book of NZME, you don’t image a lot of these institutional investors who hold the bulk of the shares are going to be as excited about editorial direction and issues as Grenon would be . . .  but they would be excited about the sale of OneRoof.”

    Wanting the publishing side
    Greive said he could imagine a scenario where Grenon told shareholders he wanted the publishing side, at a reduced value, and the OneRoof business could be separated off.

    “From a pure value realisation, maximisation of shareholder value point of view, that makes sense to me.”

    Greive said attention would now go on the 37 percent of shareholders whom Grenon said had been consulted in confidence about his plans.

    “It will become clear pretty quickly and they will be under pressure to say why they are involved in this and it will become clear pretty quickly whether my theory is correct.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RSF slams ‘horrific conditions’ for journalists in Gaza in wake of fragile ceasefire

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based global watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed support for Gaza’s media professionals and called on Israel to urgently lift the blockade on the territory.

    It said the humanitarian catastrophe was continuing in Gaza and hampering journalists’ work on a daily basis.

    The Israeli army had killed their colleagues and destroyed their homes and newsrooms, said RSF in a statement.

    Gaza’s remaining journalists, who had survived 15 months of intensive bombardment, continued to face immense challenges despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect on 19 January 2025 with the first stage expiring last weekend.

    Humanitarian aid, filtered by the Israeli authorities, is merely trickling into the blockaded territory, and Israel continues to deny entry access to foreign journalists, forbidding independent outlets from covering the aftermath of the war and the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

    Exiled Palestinian journalists are also prevented from returning to the Gaza Strip.

    “We urgently call for the blockade that is suffocating the press in Gaza to be lifted,” said RSF editorial director Anne Bocandé.

    “Reporters need multimedia and security equipment, internet and electricity.

    “Foreign reporters need access to the territory, and exiled Palestinian journalists need to be able to return.

    “While the ceasefire in Gaza has put an end to an unprecedented massacre of journalists, media infrastructure remains devastated.

    “RSF continues to campaign for justice and provide all necessary support to these journalists, to defend a free, pluralist and independent press in Palestine.”

    Reporters face the shock of a humanitarian catastrophe

    • Working amid the rubble

    “The scale of the destruction is immense, terrifying,” said Islam al-Zaanoun of Palestine TV.

    “Life seems to have disappeared. The streets have become open-air rubbish dumps. With no place to work, no internet or electricity, I was forced to stop working for several days.”

    Journalists must also contend with a severe fuel shortage, making travel within the country difficult and expensive. Like the rest of Gaza’s population, reporters have to spend long hours in queues every day to obtain water and food.

    • Israeli fire despite the ceasefire

    “Entire areas are unreachable,” Al Jazeera correspondent Hani al-Shaer told RSF.

    “The situation remains dangerous. We came under Israeli fire in Rafah.”

    The journalist explained that due to an unrelenting series of crises, he was forced to choose which stories he covered.

    “The destroyed infrastructure? The humanitarian crisis? Abandoned orphans?” he wondered.

    • Witnesses and targets: the double trauma of reporters

    With at least 180 media professionals killed by the Israeli army in the course of 15 months of war, including at least 42 killed on the job, according to RSF figures, surviving journalists must face their trauma while continuing their news mission.

    Gaza media sources put the journalist death toll at more than 200.

    “We covered this tragedy, but we were also part of it. Often, we were the target,” stressed Islam al-Zaanoun.

    “We still can’t rest or sleep. We’re still terrified that the war will start again,” adds Hani al-Shaer.

    • The suspended lives of exiled journalists

    From Egypt to Qatar, journalists who managed to escape the horror continue to live with the consequences, unable to return to their loved ones and homes.

    “My greatest hope is to return home and see my loved ones again. But the border is closed and my house is destroyed, like those of most journalists,” lamented Ola al-Zaanoun, RSF Gaza correspondent, now based in Egypt.

    The Gaza bureau chief of The New Arab, Diaa al-Kahlout is one of many who watched the Israeli Army destroy his house.

    “When they arrested me, they bombed and set fire to my house and car. I’ve lost everything I’ve earned in my career as a journalist, and I’m starting all over again,” he told RSF.

    A refugee in Doha, Qatar, he is still haunted by the abuse inflicted by Israeli forces during his month-long detention in December 2023, following his arbitrary arrest at his home in Beit Lahya, a city in the north of the Gaza Strip.

    “No matter how many times I tell myself that I’m safe here, that I’m lucky enough to have my wife and children with me, I have trouble sleeping, working, making decisions,” confided the journalist, whose brother was killed in the war.

    “I’m scared all the time,” he added.

    Asia Pacific Media Network’s Pacific Media Watch project collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Global Community Must Demand Justice For Palestinian Journalists

    In the deadliest year for journalists in recorded history, nearly two-thirds of the total deaths were Palestinians killed by Israel. 

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports 85 journalists were killed by Israel in 2024, and 78 in 2023. The group previously reported Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as the “most dangerous situation for journalists” ever recorded.

    The international community – from newsrooms to academic institutions to government bodies and beyond – must heed the call of Palestinians demanding justice and accountability for Israel’s human rights violations against journalists and for the protection of media workers in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

    The post The Global Community Must Demand Justice For Palestinian Journalists appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Mississippi City Drops Lawsuit Against Newspaper Following National Outcry

    City officials from Clarksdale, Mississippi, are dropping a lawsuit against a local newspaper following nationwide outcry over their claims that basic reporting and opinion journalism amounted to libel. Earlier this month, The Clarksdale Press Register published an editorial blasting city officials for conducting business in secrecy. Without public notice or direct notifications to local…

    Source

  • Free Yves Engler

    On February 20, long-time Canadian Dimension columnist and contributor Yves Engler was arrested by Montréal police at the behest of pro-Israel media personality Dahlia Kurtz. In today’s Canada, offending Zionist influencers is apparently enough to land you behind bars.

    Canadians involved in progressive politics, from the left-wing of the NDP and Greens to the Communist Party, read Engler’s work and admire his commitment to social struggle. For decades, he has organized in support of just causes, from helping stop war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at Concordia University in 2002, to tirelessly confronting Canadian politicians about their complicity in the genocide in Gaza, to penning a vast catalogue of work that shatters complacent illusions about Canada’s benevolence and reveals the often cynical, profit-driven, anti-democratic heart of Ottawa’s foreign policy.

    The post Free Yves Engler appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Yves Engler: ‘I’m Being Charged For Responding To Anti-Palestinian Hate’

    Tomorrow, the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    Today, I received a phone call from a Montreal police officer by the last name of Crivello. She asked me to come to a downtown police station where I will be charged for harassment and indecent communication. Crivello said a complaint was submitted against me months ago by a legal firm on behalf of racist media personality Dahlia Kurtz. Crivello said I had described Kurtz as a “genocide” supporter and “fascist” on Twitter. Guilty as charged.

    The post Yves Engler: ‘I’m Being Charged For Responding To Anti-Palestinian Hate’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Trump Relishes in MSNBC’s Firing of Joy Reid, Making False Claims of “Fake News”

    President Donald Trump celebrated the firing of MSNBC host Joy Reid on Sunday, denouncing her and the network as “fake news” and asserting that they should be “forced to pay vast sums of money” for their factual reporting on him. Reid, who has been with MSNBC since 2014 and has hosted a primetime program called “The ReidOut” for the past five years, was fired in a major shakeup of the network.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Mississippi Judge Orders Newspaper to Delete Editorial Critical of City

    A Mississippi state judge has taken the extraordinary action of ordering a newspaper to erase an editorial from its website, claiming that the editorial included undue criticisms of city government officials — a ruling that is in direct violation of the paper’s First Amendment press freedoms, critics are saying. The Clarksdale Press Register published an editorial on February 8 criticizing…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • US backing for Pacific disinformation media course casualty of Trump aid ‘freeze’

    Pacific Media Watch

    A New Zealand-based community education provider, Dark Times Academy, has had a US Embassy grant to deliver a course teaching Pacific Islands journalists about disinformation terminated after the new Trump administration took office.

    The new US administration requested a list of course participants and to review the programme material amid controversy over a “freeze” on federal aid policies.

    The course presentation team refused and the contract was terminated by “mutual agreement” — but the eight-week Pacific workshop is going ahead anyway from next week.

    Dark Times Academy's Mandy Henk
    Dark Times Academy’s co-founder Mandy Henk . . . “A Bit Sus”, an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes on disinfiormation for Pacific media. Image: Newsroom

    “As far as I can tell, the current foreign policy priorities of the US government seem to involve terrorising the people of Gaza, annexing Canada, invading Greenland, and bullying Panama,” said Dark Times Academy co-founder Mandy Henk.

    “We felt confident that a review of our materials would not find them to be aligned with those priorities.”

    The course, called “A Bit Sus”, is an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes that teach key professions the skills needed to identify and counter disinformation and misinformation in their particular field.

    The classes focus on “prebunking”, lateral reading, and how technology, including generative AI, influences disinformation.

    Awarded competitive funds
    Dark Times Academy was originally awarded the funds to run the programme through a public competitive grant offered by the US Embassy in New Zealand in 2023 under the previous US administration.

    The US Embassy grant was focused on strengthening the capacity of Pacific media to identify and counter disinformation. While funded by the US, the course was to be a completely independent programme overseen by Dark Times Academy and its academic consultants.

    Co-founder Henk was preparing to deliver the education programme to a group of Pacific Island journalists and media professionals, but received a request from the US Embassy in New Zealand to review the course materials to “ensure they are in line with US foreign policy priorities”.

    Henk said she and the other course presenters refused to allow US government officials to review the course material for this purpose.

    She said the US Embassy had also requested a “list of registered participants for the online classes,” which Dark Times Academy also declined to provide as compliance would have violated the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

    Henk said the refusal to provide the course materials for review led immediately to further discussions with the US Embassy in New Zealand that ultimately resulted in the termination of the grant “by mutual agreement”.

    However, she said Dark Times Academy would still go ahead with running the course for the Pacific Island journalists who had signed up so far, starting on February 26.

    Continuing the programme
    “The Dark Times Academy team fully intends to continue to bring the ‘A Bit Sus’ programme and other classes to the Pacific region and New Zealand, even without the support of the US government,” Henk said.

    “As noted when we first announced this course, the Pacific Islands have experienced accelerated growth in digital connectivity over the past few years thanks to new submarine cable networks and satellite technology.

    “Alongside this, the region has also seen a surge in harmful rumours and disinformation that is increasingly disrupting the ability to share accurate and truthful information across Pacific communities.

    “This course will help participants from the media recognise common tactics used by disinformation agents and support them to deploy proven educational and communications techniques.

    “By taking a skills-based approach to countering disinformation, our programme can help to spread the techniques needed to mitigate the risks posed by digital technologies,” Henk said.

    Especially valuable for journalists
    Dark Times Academy co-founder Byron Clark said the course would be especially valuable for journalists in the Pacific region given the recent shifts in global politics and the current state of the planet.

    Dark Times Academy co-founder and author Byron C Clark
    Dark Times Academy co-founder and author Byron Clark . . . “We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa.” Image: APR

    “We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa, for example,” said Clark, author of the best-selling book Fear: New Zealand’s Underworld of Hostile Extremists.

    “With Pacific Island states bearing the brunt of climate change, as well as being caught between a geopolitical stoush between China and the West, a course like this one is timely.”

    Henk said the “A Bit Sus” programme used a “high-touch teaching model” that combined the current best evidence on how to counter disinformation with a “learner-focused pedagogy that combines discussion, activities, and a project”.

    Past classes led to the creation of the New Zealand version of the “Euphorigen Investigation” escape room, a board game, and a card game.

    These materials remain in use across New Zealand schools and community learning centres.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CPJ: Nepal lawmakers should reject social media bill threatening press freedom

    New York, February 14, 2025—The Nepalese government should withdraw a recently introduced social media bill that is expected to undermine press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

    “Nepal’s proposed social media law is ripe for misuse against journalists reporting on critical topics of public interest,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Nepalese lawmakers should refuse to accept the proposed legislation unless it is significantly revised to protect the rights to freedom of expression and privacy.”

    Nepal Minister of Communication and Information Technology Prithvi Subba Gurung presented the “Bill on the Operation, Use, and Regulation of Social Media” in the National Assembly, the federal parliament’s upper house, on February 9. Legislators can propose amendments before voting on the bill, which provides for hefty fines, license revocations for social media platforms, and prison sentences of up to five years for users.

    The bill includes provisions prohibiting publishing or sharing posts with “false or misleading information” or “gruesome content” — measures that Santosh Sigdel, executive director of the non-profit Digital Rights Nepal, says would impose “an impractical onus on users.” It also bars the creation or use of anonymous profiles, which could restrict investigative journalists in particular.  

    Sigdel is also concerned that the proposed law could allow a government department to surveil journalists through its monitoring of social media content. The unnamed department “responsible for information technology” could also order social media platforms to remove content.

    Sigdel told CPJ that the bill does not provide any exceptions for content posted by the media, contravening the rights to freedom of expression and press freedom as outlined under Articles 17 and 19 of the Nepal constitution. Social media platforms would be required to hand over user data to the government, contravening privacy rights under the constitution and the 2018 Privacy Act, he said.

    Gurung said the bill “does not restrict people’s freedom of expression or press freedom.” The minister did not respond to CPJ’s calls and text messages requesting comment.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RSF demands White House restores AP’s access — and let press do its job

    Pacific Media Watch

    Trump administration officials barred two Associated Press (AP) reporters from covering White House events this week because the US-based independent news agency did not change its style guide to align with the president’s political agenda.

    The AP is being punished for using the term “Gulf of Mexico,” which the president renamed “Gulf of America” in a recent executive order, reports the global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    The watchdog RSF condemned this “flagrant violation of the First Amendment” and demanded the AP be given back its full ability to cover the White House.

    “The level of pettiness displayed by the White House is so incredible that it almost hides the gravity of the situation,” said RSF’s USA executive director Clayton Weimers.

    “A sitting president is punishing a major news outlet for its constitutionally protected choice of words. Donald Trump has been trampling over press freedom since his first day in office.”

    News from the AP wire service is widely used by Pacific media.

    First AP reporter barred
    AP was informed by the White House on Tuesday, February 11, that its organisation would be barred from accessing an event if it did not align with the executive order, a statement from executive editor Julie Pace said.

    The news organisation reported that a first AP reporter was turned away Tuesday afternoon as they tried to enter a White House event.

    Later that day, a second AP reporter was barred from a separate event in the White House Diplomatic Room.

    “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment,” the AP statement said.

    Unrelenting attacks on the press
    Shortly after he was inaugurated on January 20, President Trump signed an executive order “restoring freedom of speech,” which proclaimed: “It is the policy of the United States to ensure that no Federal government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”

    Yet the president’s subsequent actions have continually proved that this statement is hollow when it comes to freedom of the press.

    The White House
    The White House . . . clamp down on US government transparency and against the media. Image: RSF

    Prior to barring an AP reporter, the Trump administration launched Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigations into public broadcasters NPR and PBS as well as the private television network CBS.

    It has restricted press access to the Pentagon and arbitrarily removed freelance journalists from White House press pool briefings.

    In a startling withdrawal of transparency, it removed scores of government webpages and datasets and barred many agency press teams from speaking publicly.

    Also the president is personally suing multiple news organisations over their constitutionally protected editorial decisions.

    The United States is ranked 55th out of 180 countries and territories, according to the 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

    Republished from Reporters Without Borders (RSF).


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In the quest to appease Israel, the media undermine our basic rights

    In its eagerness to appease supporters of Israel, the media is happy to ride roughshod over due process and basic rights. It’s damaging Australia’s (and New Zealand’s?) democracy.

    COMMENTARY: By Bernard Keane

    Two moments stand out so far from the Federal Court hearings relating to Antoinette Lattouf’s sacking by the ABC, insofar as they demonstrate how power works in Australia — and especially in Australia’s media.

    The first is how the ABC’s senior management abandoned due process in the face of a sustained lobbying effort by a pro-Israel group to have Lattouf taken off air, under the confected basis she was “antisemitic”.

    Managing director David Anderson admitted in court that there was a “step missing” in the process that led to her sacking — in particular, a failure to consult with the ABC’s HR area, and a failure to discuss the attacks on Lattouf with Lattouf herself, before kicking her out.

    To this, it might be added, was acting editorial director Simon Melkman’s advice to management that Lattouf had not breached any editorial policies.

    Anderson bizarrely singled out Lattouf’s authorship, alongside Cameron Wilson, of a Crikey article questioning the narrative that pro-Palestinian protesters had chanted “gas the Jews”, as basis for his concerns about her, only for one of his executives to point out the article was “balanced and journalistically sound“.

    That is, by the ABC’s own admission, there was no basis to sack Lattouf and the sacking was conducted improperly. And yet, here we are, with the ABC tying itself in absurd knots — no such race as Lebanese, indeed — spending millions defending its inappropriate actions in response to a lobbying campaign.

    The second moment that stands out is a decision by the court early in the trial to protect the identities of those calling for Lattouf’s sacking.

    Abandoned due process
    The campaign that the group rolled out prompted the ABC chair and managing director to immediately react — and the ABC to abandon due process and procedural fairness. Yet the court protects their identities.

    The reasoning — that the identities behind the complaints should be protected for their safety — may or may not be based on reasonable fears, but it’s the second time that institutions have worked to protect people who planned to undermine the careers of people — specifically, women — who have dared to criticise Israel.

    The first was when some members — a minority — of a WhatsApp group supposedly composed of pro-Israel “creatives” discussed how to wreck the careers of, inter alia, Clementine Ford and Lauren Dubois for their criticism of Israel.

    The publishing of the identities of this group was held by both the media and the political class to be an outrageous, antisemitic act of “doxxing”, and the federal government rushed through laws to make such publications illegal.

    No mention of making the act of trying to destroy people’s careers because they hold different political views — or, cancel culture, as the right likes to call it — illegal.

    Whether it’s courts, politicians or the media, it seems that the dice are always loaded in favour of those wanting to crush criticism of Israel, while its victims are left to fend for themselves.

    Human rights lawyer and fighter against antisemitism Sarah Schwartz has been repeatedly threatened with (entirely vexatious) lawsuits by Israel supporters for her criticism of Israel, and her discussion of the exploitation of Australian Jews by Peter Dutton.

    Targeted by another News Corp smear campaign
    She’s been targeted by yet another News Corp smear campaign, based on nothing more than a wilfully misinterpreted slide. She has no government or court rushing to protect her.

    Meanwhile, Peter Lalor, one of Australia’s finest sports journalists (and I write as someone who can’t abide most sports journalism) lost his job with SEN because he, too, dared to criticise Israel and call out the Palestinian genocide. No-one’s rushing to his aide, either.

    No powerful institutions are weighing in to safeguard his privacy, or protect him from the consequences of his opinions.

    The individual cases add up to a pattern: Australian institutions, and especially its major media institutions, will punish you for criticising Israel.

    Pro-Israel groups will demand you be sacked, they will call for your career to be destroyed. Those groups will be protected.

    Media companies will ride roughshod over basic rights and due process to comply with their demands. You will be smeared and publicly vilified on completely spurious bases. Politicians will join in, as Jason Clare did with the campaign against Schwartz and as Chris Minns is doing in NSW, imposing hate speech laws that even Christian groups think are a bad idea.

    Damaging the fabric of democracy
    This is how the campaign to legitimise the Palestinian genocide and destroy critics of the Netanyahu government has damaged the fabric of Australia’s democracy and the rule of law.

    The basic rights and protections that Australians should have under a legal system devoted to preventing discrimination can be stripped away in a moment, while those engaged in destroying people’s careers and livelihoods are protected.

    Ill-advised laws are rushed in to stifle freedom of speech. Australian Jews are stereotyped as a politically convenient monolith aligned with the Israeli government.

    The experience of Palestinians themselves, and of Arab communities in Australia, is minimised and erased. And the media are the worst perpetrators of all.

    Bernard Keane is Crikey’s politics editor. Before that he was Crikey’s Canberra press gallery correspondent, covering politics, national security and economics. First published by Crikey.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Swiss Official Who Jailed Journalist Ali Abunimah Is Pro-Israel Fanatic

    The Swiss official who ordered the arrest of renowned Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah justified doing so on the false and defamatory basis that Abunimah is “an Islamist Jew-hater.” Mario Fehr, the head of Zurich’s Department of Security, made the bogus accusation in a recent comment to the Swiss publication NZZ, which also falsely characterized Abunimah as an “Islamist” and an “extremist.”

    Swiss authorities detained Abunimah on Jan. 25, after they initially allowed him entry into Switzerland following an hour-long interrogation.

    The post Swiss Official Who Jailed Journalist Ali Abunimah Is Pro-Israel Fanatic appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Civicus Monitor criticises PNG use of cybercrime law to curb free speech

    Pacific Media Watch

    Papua New Guinea’s civic space has been rated as “obstructed” by the Civicus Monitor and the country has been criticised for pushing forward with a controversial media law in spite of strong opposition.

    Among concerns previously documented by the civil rights watchdog are harassment and threats against human rights defenders, particularly those working on land and environmental rights, use of the cybercrime law to criminalise online expression, intimidation and restrictions against journalists, and excessive force during protests.

    In recent months, the authorities have used the cybercrime law to target a human rights defender for raising questions online on forest enforcement, while a journalist and gender-based violence survivor is also facing charges under the law, said the Civicus Monitor in its latest report.

    The court halted a logging company’s lawsuit against a civil society group while the government is pushing forward with the controversial National Media Development law.

    Human rights defender charged under cybercrime law
    On 9 December 2024, human rights defender and ACT NOW! campaign manager Eddie Tanago was arrested and charged by police under section 21(2) of the Cybercrime Act 2016 for allegedly publishing defamatory remarks on social media about the managing director of the PNG Forest Authority.

    Tanago was taken to the Boroko Police Station Holding cell and released on bail the same afternoon. If convicted he could face a maximum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment.

    ACT NOW is a prominent human rights organisation seeking to halt illegal logging and related human rights violations in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

    According to reports, ACT NOW had reshared a Facebook post from a radio station advertising an interview with PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) staff members, which included a photo of the managing director.

    The repost included a comment raising questions about PNGFA forest enforcement.

    Following Tanago’s arrest, ACT NOW said: “it believes that the arrest and charging of Tanago is a massive overreach and is a blatant and unwarranted attempt to intimidate and silence public debate on a critical issue of national and international importance.”

    It added that “there was nothing defamatory in the social media post it shared and there is nothing remotely criminal in republishing a poster which includes the image of a public figure which can be found all over the internet.”

    On 24 January 2025, when Tanago appeared at the Waigani Committal Court, he was instead charged under section 15, subparagraph (b) of the Cybercrime Act for “identity theft”. The next hearing has been scheduled for February 25.

    The 2016 Cybercrime Act has been used to silence criticism and creates a chilling effect, said Civicus Monitor.

    The law has been criticised by the opposition, journalists and activists for its impact on freedom of expression and political discourse.

    Journalist and gender activist charged with defamation
    Journalist and gender activist Hennah Joku was detained and charged under the Cybercrime Act on 23 November 2024, following defamation complaints filed by her former partner Robert Agen.

    Joku was charged with two counts of breaching the Cybercrimes Act 2016 and detained in Boroko Prison. She was freed on the same day after bail was posted.

    Joku, a survivor of a 2018 assault by Agen, had documented and shared her six-year journey through the PNG justice system, which had resulted in his conviction and jailing in 2023.

    On 2 September 2024, the PNG Supreme Court overturned two of three criminal convictions, and Agen was released from prison.

    On 4 and 15 September 2024, Joku shared her reactions with more than 9000 followers on her Meta social media account. Those two posts, one of which featured the injuries suffered from her 2018 assault, now form the basis for the current defamation charges against her.

    Section 21(2) of the Cybercrimes Act 2016, which has an electronic defamation clause, carries a maximum penalty of up to 25 years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to one million kina (NZ$442,000).

    The Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) expressed “grave concerns” over the charges, saying: “We encourage the government and judiciary to review the use of defamation legislation to silence and gag the universal right to freedom of speech.

    “Citizens must be informed. They must be protected.”

    Court stays logging company lawsuit against civil society group
    In January 2025, an injunction issued against community advocacy group ACT NOW! to prevent publication of reports on illegal logging has been stayed by the National Court.

    In July 2024, two Malaysian owned logging companies obtained an order from the District Court in Vanimo preventing ACT NOW! from issuing publications about their activities and from contacting their clients and service providers.

    That order has now been effectively lifted after the National Court agreed to stay the whole District court proceedings while it considers an application from ACT NOW! to have the case permanently stayed and transferred to the National Court.

    ACT NOW! said the action by Global Elite Limited and Wewak Agriculture Development Limited, which are part of the Giant Kingdom group, is an example of Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP).

    “SLAPPs are illegitimate and abusive lawsuits designed to intimidate, harass and silence legitimate criticism and close down public scrutiny of the logging industry,” said Civicus Monitor.

    SLAPP lawsuits have been outlawed in many countries and lawyers involved in supporting them can be sanctioned, but those protections do not yet exist in PNG.

    The District Court action is not the first time the Malaysian-owned Giant Kingdom group has tried to use the legal system in an attempt to silence ACT NOW!

    In March 2024, the court rejected a similar SLAPP style application by the Global Elite for an injunction against ACT NOW! As a result, the company discontinued its legal action and the court ordered it to pay ACT NOW!’s legal costs.

    Government pushes forward with controversial media legislation
    The government is reportedly ready to pass legislation to regulate its media, which journalism advocates have said could have serious implications for democracy and freedom of speech in the country.

    National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) of PNG reported in January 2025 that the policy has received the “green light” from cabinet to be presented in Parliament.

    The state broadcaster reported that Communications Minister Timothy Masiu said: “This policy will address the ongoing concerns about sensationalism, ethical standards, and the portrayal of violence in the media.”

    In July 2024, it was reported that the proposed media policy was now in its fifth draft but it is unclear if this version has been updated.

    As previously documented, journalists have raised concerns that the media development policy could lead to more government control over the country’s relatively free media.

    The bill includes sections that give the government the “power to investigate complaints against media outlets, issue guidelines for ethical reporting, and enforce sanctions or penalties for violations of professional standards”.

    There are also concerns that the law will punish journalists who create content that is against the country’s development objectives.

    Organisations such as Transparency International PNG, Media Council of PNG, Pacific Freedom Forum, and Pacific Media Watch/Asia Pacific Media Network among others, have asked for the policy to be dropped.

    The press freedom ranking for PNG dropped from 59th place to 91st in the most recent index published by Reporters without Borders (RSF) in May 2024.

    Civicus Monitor.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • China tops list of countries trying to silence exiled dissidents over past decade, study shows

    Russia, Turkey and Egypt also among worst perpetrators of transnational repression around the globe

    A quarter of the world’s countries have engaged in transnational repression – targeting political exiles abroad to silence dissent – in the past decade, new research reveals.

    The Washington DC-based non-profit organisation Freedom House has documented 1,219 incidents carried out by 48 governments across 103 countries, from 2014 to 2024.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Austrian Police Detain Richard Medhurst; Accuse Him Of Being Hamas

    British independent journalist Richard Medhurst said Thursday he was detained this week by Austrian police and intelligence agents and accused of being a member of Hamas.

    Medhurst, who lives in Austria and is a fierce critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, said police raided his home on Monday, took his devices and interrogated him. “They essentially lured me into a trap,” he said on a video posted on X.

    The journalist said immigration authorities called him to a meeting where they threatened to revoke his residency because of his reporting on Palestine and Lebanon.

    The post Austrian Police Detain Richard Medhurst; Accuse Him Of Being Hamas appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Trump’s foreign aid freeze throws independent journalism into chaos

    Pacific Media Watch

    President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information.

    Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and journalists doing vital work into chaotic uncertainty — including in the Pacific.

    In a statement published on its website, RSF has called for international public and private support to commit to the “sustainability of independent media”.

    Since the new American president announced the freeze of US foreign aid on January 20, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been in turmoil — its website is inaccessible, its X account has been suspended, the agency’s headquarters was closed and employees told to stay home.

    South African-born American billionaire Elon Musk, an unelected official, whom Trump chose to lead the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called USAID a “criminal organisation” and declared: “We’re shutting [it] down.”

    Later that day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was named acting director of the agency, suggesting its operations were being moved to the State Department.

    Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organisations around the world — including media groups in the Pacific — that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty.

    Large and smaller media NGOs affected
    The affected organisations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.

    “The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism. The programmes that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF USA.

    President Donald Trump
    President Donald Trump . . . “The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism,” says RSF. Image: RSF

    “President Trump justified this order by charging — without evidence — that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with US interests.

    “The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appealing to the international public and private funders to commit to the sustainability of independent media.”

    USAID programmes support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media.

    Many organisations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks.

    According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023 the agency funded training and support for 6200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media.

    The USAID website today
    The USAID website today . . . All USAID “direct hire” staff were reportedly put “on leave” on 7 February 2025. Image: USAID website screenshot APR

    Activities halted overnight
    The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.

    All over the world, media outlets and organisations have had to halt some of their activities overnight.

    “We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,” explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous.

    In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the economic capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election.

    An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive.

    An exiled Iranian journalist interviewed by RSF warns that the impact of the funding freeze could silence some of the last remaining free voices, creating a vacuum that Iranian state propaganda would inevitably fill.

    “Shutting us off will mean that they’ll have more power,” she says.

    USAID: the main donor for Ukrainian media
    In Ukraine, where 9 out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor, several local media have already announced the suspension of their activities and are searching for alternative solutions.

    “At Slidstvo.Info, 80 percent of our budget is affected,” said Anna Babinets, CEO and co-founder of this independent investigative media outlet based in Kyiv.

    The risk of this suspension is that it could open the door to other sources of funding that may seek to alter the editorial line and independence of these media.

    “Some media might be shut down or bought by businessmen or oligarchs. I think Russian money will enter the market. And government propaganda will, of course, intensify,” Babinets said.

    RSF has already witnessed the direct effects of such propaganda — a fabricated video, falsely branded with the organisation’s logo, claimed that RSF welcomed the suspension of USAID funding for Ukrainian media — a stance RSF has never endorsed.

    This is not the first instance of such disinformation.

    Finding alternatives quickly
    This situation highlights the financial fragility of the sector.

    According to Oleh Dereniuha, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian local media outlet NikVesti, based in Mykolaiv, a city in southeast Ukraine, “The suspension of US funding is just the tip of the iceberg — a key case that illustrates the severity of the situation.”

    Since 2024, independent Ukrainian media outlets have found securing financial sustainability nearly impossible due to the decline in donors.

    As a result, even minor budget cuts could put these media outlets in a precarious position.

    A recent RSF report stressed the need to focus on the economic recovery of the independent Ukrainian media landscape, weakened by the large-scale Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, which RSF’s study estimated to be at least $96 million over three years.

    Moreover, beyond the decline in donor support in Ukraine, media outlets are also facing growing threats to their funding and economic models in other countries.

    Georgia’s Transparency of Foreign Influence Law — modelled after Russia’s legislation — has put numerous media organisations at risk. The Georgian Prime Minister welcomed the US president’s decision with approval.

    This suspension is officially expected to last only 90 days, according to the US government.

    However, some, like Katerina Abramova, communications director for leading exiled Russian media outlet Meduza, fear that the reviews of funding contracts could take much longer.

    Abramova is anticipating the risk that these funds may be permanently cut off.

    “Exiled media are even in a more fragile position than others, as we can’t monetise our audience and the crowdfunding has its limits — especially when donating to Meduza is a crime in Russia,” Abramova stressed.

    By abruptly suspending American aid, the United States has made many media outlets and journalists vulnerable, dealing a significant blow to press freedom.

    For all the media outlets interviewed by RSF, the priority is to recover and urgently find alternative funding.

    How Fijivillage News reported the USAID crackdown
    How Fijivillage News reported the USAID crackdown by the Trump administration. Image: Fijivillage News screenshot APR

    Fiji, Pacific media, aid groups reel shocked by cuts
    In Suva, Fiji, as Pacific media groups have been reeling from the shock of the aid cuts, Fijivillage News reports that hundreds of local jobs and assistance to marginalised communities are being impacted because Fiji is an AUSAID hub.

    According to an USAID staff member speaking on the condition of anonymity, Trump’s decision has affected hundreds of Fijian jobs due to USAID believing in building local capacity.

    The staff member said millions of dollars in grants for strengthening climate resilience, the healthcare system, economic growth, and digital connectivity in rural communities were now on hold.

    The staff member also said civil society organisations, especially grantees in rural areas that rely on their aid, were at risk.

    Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report collaborate with Reporters Without Borders.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Journalism has become a blood sport. It is harder and harder to tell the truth’

    A investigative journalism programme — Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) — that has pubiished exposes about the South Pacific and has not been impacted on by the “freeze” of USAID funding has hit back in an editorial calling for support of independent media.

    EDITORIAL: By the OCCRP editors

    “OCCRP is a deep state operation.
    “OCCRP is connected to the CIA.
    “OCCRP was tasked by USAID to overthrow President Donald Trump.”

    How did we end up getting this kind of attention? Old fashioned investigative journalism.

    We wrote a simple story in 2019 about how Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine for some opposition research and ended up working with people connected to organised crime who misled him.

    Unbeknown to us, a whistleblower found the story online and added it to a complaint that was the basis of President Trump’s first impeachment. We also wrote a story about Hunter Biden‘s business partners and their ties to organised crime but that hasn’t received the same attention.

    Journalism has become a blood sport. It’s harder and harder to tell the truth without someone’s interests getting stepped on.

    OCCRP prides itself on being independent and nonpartisan. No donor has any say in our reporting, but we often find ourselves under attack for our funding.

    It’s not just political interests but organised crime, businesses, enablers, and other journalists who regularly attack us. What’s common in all of these attacks is that the truth doesn’t matter and it will not protect you.

    Few attack the facts in our reporting. Instead we’re left perplexed by how to respond to wild conspiracy theories, outright disinformation, and hyperbolic hatred.

    At the same time, we’ve lost 29 percent of our funding because of the US foreign aid freeze. This includes 82 percent of the money we give to newsrooms in our network, many of which operate in places [Pacific Media Watch: Such as in the Pacific] where no one else will support them.

    This money did not only fund groundbreaking, prize-winning collaborative journalism but it also trained young investigative reporters to expose wrongdoing. It’s money that kept journalists safe from physical and digital attacks and supported those in exile who continued to report on crooks and dictators back in their home countries.

    OCCRP now has 43 less journalists and staff to do our work.

    No attack or funding freeze will stop us from trying to fulfill our mission. Just in the past week, OCCRP and its partners revealed how Russia’s shadow fleet sources its ships, how taxes haven’t been paid on Roman Abramovich’s yachts, and how Syrian intelligence spied on journalists.

    Next week, we’ll take on another set of powerful actors to defend the public interest. And another set the week after that.

    We are determined to stay in the fight and keep reporting on organised crime and the corrupt who enable and benefit from it. But it’s getting harder and we need help.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • How the Palestine Authority and Israel are allies in silencing the truth

    COMMENTARY: By Eman Mohammed

    On December 28, 21-year-old student journalist Shatha Al-Sabbagh was assassinated near her home in Jenin. Her family accused snipers from the Palestinian Authority (PA) deployed in the camp of shooting her in the head.

    Al-Sabbagh had been active on social media, documenting the suffering of Jenin residents during the raids by Israel and the PA.

    Just a few days after Al-Sabbagh’s assassination, the authorities in Ramallah banned Al Jazeera from reporting from the occupied West Bank.

    The author Eman Mohammed
    The author Eman Mohammed . . . “Growing up in Gaza, I watched how my people were oppressed by Israeli forces and by the PA.” Image: APR

    Three weeks later, PA forces arrested Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamad Atrash.

    These developments come as the Israeli occupation has killed more than 200 media workers in Gaza and arrested dozens across the occupied Palestinian territories. It has also banned Al Jazeera and refused to allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza.

    The fact that the PA’s actions mirror Israel’s reveals a shared agenda to suppress independent journalism and control public opinion.

    To Palestinian journalists, that is hardly news. The PA has never been our protector. It has always been a complicit partner in our brutalisation. That is true in the West Bank and it was true in Gaza when the PA was in power there. I witnessed it myself.

    Collaboration with Israel
    Growing up in Gaza, I watched how my people were oppressed by Israeli forces and by the PA. In 1994, the Israeli occupation formally handed over the Strip to the PA to administer under the provisions of the Oslo Accords.

    The PA remained in power until 2007. During these 13 years, we saw more collaboration with the Israeli occupation than any meaningful attempt at liberation.

    For journalists, the PA’s presence was not just oppressive, it was life-threatening, as its forces actively stifled voices to maintain its fragile grip on power.

    As a journalism student in Gaza, I experienced this suppression firsthand. I walked the streets, witnessing PA security officers looting shops, their arrogance apparent in the brazen act of theft. One day, when I attempted to document this, a Palestinian officer violently grabbed me, ripped my camera from my hands, and smashed it to the ground.

    This wasn’t just an assault, it was an attack on my right to bear witness. The officer’s aggression only ceased when a group of women intervened, forcing him to retreat in a rare moment of restraint.

    I knew the risks of being a journalist in Gaza and like other media workers, I learned to navigate them. But the fear I felt near the PA forces’ ambush points was unlike anything else. That was because there was never logic to their aggressive actions and no way to anticipate when they might turn on you.

    Walking near the PA forces felt like stepping into a minefield. One moment, there was the illusion of safety, and the next, you faced the brutality of those who were supposedly there to protect you. This uncertainty and tension made their presence more terrifying than being on a battlefield.

    Dangerous but predictable
    Years later, I would cover the training sessions of Qassam Brigades under the constant hum of Israeli drones and the ever-looming threat of air strikes. It was dangerous but predictable — much more so than the actions of the PA.

    A group of Palestinian journalists protest in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council
    A group of Palestinian journalists protest in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council headquarters against the decision of the Palestinian Authority to close Bethlehem-based private TV channel Al-Roah in Gaza City in 1999. Image: AJ File

    Under the PA, we learned to speak in code. Journalists self-censored out of fear of retribution. The PA was often referred to as “cousins of Israeli occupation” – a grim acknowledgement of its complicity.

    As the PA was fighting to stay in power in Gaza after losing the 2006 elections to Hamas, its brutality escalated.

    In May 2007, gunmen in presidential guard uniforms killed journalist Suleiman Abdul-Rahim al-Ashi and media worker Mohammad Matar Abdo. It was an execution meant to send a clear message to those who witnessed it.

    When Hamas took over, its government also imposed restrictions on press freedoms, but its censorship was inconsistent. Once, while documenting the new policewomen’s division, I was ordered to show my photos to a Hamas officer so he could censor any image he deemed immodest.

    I often managed to bypass these restrictions by swapping my memory cards preemptively.

    The officers weren’t fond of anyone overriding their orders, but instead of outright punishment, they resorted to petty power plays — investigations, revoked access, or unnecessary provocations.

    Unlike the PA, Hamas did not operate within a system of coordination with Israeli forces to suppress journalism, but the restrictions journalists faced still created an environment of uncertainty and self-censorship.

    Swift international condemnation
    Any violation on their part, however, was met with swift international condemnation– something the PA rarely faced, despite its far more systematic repression.

    After losing control of Gaza, the PA shifted its focus to the West Bank, intensifying its campaign of media suppression. Detentions, violent crackdowns, and the silencing of critical voices became commonplace.

    Their collaboration with Israel was not passive; it was active. From surveillance to campaigns of violence, they play a crucial role in maintaining the status quo, stifling any dissent that challenges their power and the occupation.

    In 2016, the PA’s collusion became even more apparent when they coordinated with Israeli authorities in the arrest of prominent journalist and press freedom advocate Omar Nazzal, who had criticised Ramallah for how it handled the suspected murder of Palestinian citizen Omar al-Naif at its embassy in Bulgaria.

    In 2017, the PA launched a campaign of intimidation, arresting five journalists from different outlets.

    In 2019, the Palestinian Authority blocked the website of Quds News Network, a youth-led media outlet that has gained immense popularity. This was part of a wider ban imposed by the Ramallah Magistrate’s Court that blocked access to 24 other news websites and social media pages.

    In 2021, after the violent death of activist Nizar Banat in the PA’s custody sparked protests, its forces sought to crack down on journalists and media outlets covering them.

    In this context, the prospect of the PA returning to Gaza following the ceasefire agreement raises serious concerns for journalists who have already endured the horrors of genocide.

    For those who survived, this could mean a new chapter of repression that reflects the PA’s history of censorship, arrests and stifling of press freedoms.

    Despite the grave threats that Palestinian journalists face from Israel and from those who pretend to represent the Palestinian people, they persevere. Their work transcends borders, reflecting a shared struggle against tyranny. Their resilience speaks not only to the Palestinian cause but to the broader fight for liberation, justice and dignity.

    Eman Mohammed is an award-winning Palestinian-American photojournalist and Senior TED fellow currently based in Washington, DC. Republished from Al Jazeera under Creative Commons.

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.