Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

World Press Freedom Day 2019 - Journalists provide the checks and balances fundamental to all democracies, by highlighting government failures or reporting on societal injustice.

Sierra Leone’s Journalists Demand Justice for “Murdered” Colleague and Call for Law Reform Lahai J. Samboma Ibrahim Samura, erstwhile editor and publisher of New Age, an independent Freetown newspaper, was beaten up with “heavy-duty metal chains and sticks” during Sierra Leone's presidential run-off election in March 2018—in front of the police and army. He died from his injuries three months later. But ... MORE > >

On World Press Freedom Day, Let us Ask: #WhereIsAzory? Muthoki Mumo Speaking in parliament recently, Tanzania’s information minister, Harrison Mwakyembe, wondered why people were still concerned about the whereabouts of Azory Gwanda, a freelance journalist who went missing in November 2017 in the country’s Coast Region. After all, he was reported saying, many ... MORE > >

VIDEO: World Press Freedom Day 2019 - Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation IPS World Desk Journalists and media outlets worldwide have recently been subject to a subtle wave of vilification. Populist rhetoric and public indifference have begun to threaten the very foundation of our freedom. Journalists provide the checks and balances fundamental to all democracies, by highlighting ... MORE > >

Bleak Outlook for Press Freedom in West Africa Lahai J. Samboma When former footballer George Weah became president of Liberia in 2018, media practitioners felt they had in him a democrat who would champion media freedoms. “But we were mistaken,” journalist Henry Costa told IPS. Any objective assessment of the relationship between West Africa governments ... MORE > >

Media Landscape Marked by “Climate of Fear” Tharanga Yakupitiyage Journalists around the world are increasingly seeing threats of violence, detention, and even death simply for doing their job, a new press index found. In the 2019 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has found a worrisome decline in media freedoms as toxic anti-press ... MORE > >

'You Cannot Muzzle the Media': Nigerian Journalists on Press Freedom under Buhari Jonathan Rozen When Nigeria's incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari won re-election this year, he campaigned (as he did in 2015) on an image of good governance and anti-corruption. Billboards in the capital, Abuja, bore the smiling faces of the president--who first led Nigeria as military ruler from 1983-1985--and ... MORE > >

Why the Prosecution of Julian Assange is Troubling for Press Freedom Alexandra Ellerbeck and Avi Asher-Schapiro After a seven-year standoff at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, British police last week arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange--a development press freedom advocates had long feared. For years, journalists and press freedom advocates worried the U.S. would prosecute Assange under the ... MORE > >

Hard Battle Ahead for Independent Arab Media Mouna Ben Garga Sometimes a peak into the future reminds us just how stuck we are in the past and present. It was the talk of the Middle East’s largest annual media industry gathering: a robot journalist – the region’s first – that wowed some 3,000 industry leaders and practitioners at the Arab Media Forum ... MORE > >

Civil Society, Press Freedom & Human Rights Under Attack in Africa Thalif Deen The civic space in several African countries, including Tanzania, Burundi, Zambia, Sudan, Mozambique, Somalia and Eritrea, is gradually shrinking – and mostly under authoritarian leaders and repressive regimes. The attacks are directed largely against human rights and civil society ... MORE > >

Attacks on Media in the Balkans Sound Alarm Bells for Democracy Susan Wilding Anti-government protesters invading Serbia’s state-owned television station, demanding that their voices be heard. Journalism bodies writing to the Albanian prime minister over plans to censor online media outlets. A Belgrade corruption-busting reporter forced to flee his house that had been ... MORE > >

How Many Journalists are Jailed in China? Censorship Means We Don't Know Iris Hsu Reporting on China's harassment of journalists has never been easy. Lately it's been getting much harder, which suggests that conditions for the press could be worsening. At least 47 journalists were jailed in China at the time of CPJ's 2018 prison census and I am investigating at least a ... MORE > >

Ghana Won't Have Press Freedom Without Accountability Jonathan Rozen Three bullets, fired at close range by two assassins on a black and blue Boxer motorbike on January 16, 2019, killed investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela, according to Sammy Darko, a lawyer working on Divela's case. Darko told CPJ over the phone that bystanders saw it happen. ... MORE > >

From Fake News to Enemy of the People: An Anatomy of Trump's Tweets Stephanie Sugars Since announcing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential elections to the end of his second year in office, U.S. President Donald Trump has sent 1,339 tweets about the media that were critical, insinuating, condemning, or threatening. In lieu of formal appearances as president, Trump has ... MORE > >

Never Been a Worse Time to be a Journalist Ed Holt “I’ve never known a time when it was as bad as it is now,” says Beata Balogova, the Vice-Chair of the International Press Institute (IPI) and Editor in Chief of the Slovak publication Sme. “In terms of what’s going on with journalists, we’re in a very unique period,” she adds. Balogova explains ... MORE > >

Journalism in Nicaragua Under Siege José Adán Silva Eight months of social and political crisis in Nicaragua have hit the exercise of independent journalism in the country, with 712 cases of violations of the free exercise of journalism, one murdered reporter, two in prison and dozens fleeing into exile, in addition to several media outlets ... MORE > >