World Press Freedom Day: Another ‘all time low’ for global journalism

More than half of the world's population lives in 42 countries, where journalism is in a "very serious" situation. RSF’s 2025 Index issues, for the first time, a red alert.

A day of celebration — or mourning? I have been for a long time doubtful about the first, but am now certain about the latter. May 3 marks the World Press Freedom Day – a day established by the UN to highlight free, pluralistic, and independent journalism.

But today, it is all about defending something that is rapidly disappearing.

The general atmosphere I observed during the well-attended International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, three weeks ago, was deeply somber and full of symbolism. For most of us who have suffered severe blows from autocrats, populist leaders and their corrupt lackeys in various parts of the world, it became clear that our colleagues from the U.S. had begun to speak the same language and share a concern we have voiced for at least a decade; thus having been saluted with the phrase, “welcome to the club”. The fact that many of the participants this time came from human rights organizations was also very telling.

The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) , published just the day before May 3, presents an even more worrisome assessment of global media freedom. Economic fragility is a leading threat, with media outlets struggling to maintain independence amid financial pressures. “The economic indicator in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index is at its lowest point in history, and the global situation is now considered ‘difficult’,” it said.

News outlets are shutting down due to economic hardship in nearly a third of countries globally. Thirty-four countries stand out for the mass closures of their media outlets, which has led to the exile of journalists in recent years.

The rise of tech oligarchs further complicates the media landscape. Dominant platforms like Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft have captured a significant share of digital advertising revenue, undermining traditional media's financial viability.

RSF notes that in 2024, these platforms garnered $247.3 billion in advertising revenue, a 14% increase from the previous year.

These findings overlap with those by another monitoring body. A recent report from the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties), based on work by 43 human rights organizations in 21 countries, concludes that several EU governments are attacking press freedom or weakening media independence and regulation.

Combined with weak transparency rules around ownership, increasing state influence over public service media, and threats against journalists, the report states that pluralism is “under attack throughout the EU — and in some cases is in an existential struggle.”

The report, cited by The Guardian, noted that public service media in Hungary are “fully captured government mouthpieces,” and that developments are heading in the same direction in Slovakia, where new laws have abolished safeguards for editorial independence.

The report singled out an “excessive concentration of media ownership as a particular concern in Croatia, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, with ownership often concentrated in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals”.

According to the report, public service media are also vulnerable in Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy. Across the ocean, the latest executive order by the US President Donald Trump to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS” comes as one of the latest moves to strangle public service media at a bedrock of democracies.

Over the past four decades, the largest news organizations in the U.S. have gradually lost their independence, swallowed up by wave after wave of mergers and acquisitions. Today, they are small cogs in gigantic corporate machines, where journalism rarely — if ever — tops the agenda. Let’s be clear: the companies that today own and control the news media do not care about news.

At the same time, the conditions for journalism are economically affected worldwide. Local newsrooms are disappearing, algorithms prioritize clickbait and fake news, and journalism is finding it increasingly difficult to assert its value in a digital culture of chaos.

In many countries, censorship takes the form of economic pressure.

But there is so much more.

So far, I have highlighted the dark clouds over two main pillars of journalism: Independence and pluralism.

RSF paints, regarding the third one — “freedom” — an equally gloomy picture worldwide.

“For the first time in the history of the Index, the conditions for practising journalism are “difficult” or “very serious” in over half of the world’s countries and satisfactory in fewer than one in four. In 42 countries — harbouring over half of the world’s population — the situation is classified as ‘very serious. In these zones, press freedom is entirely absent and practising journalism is particularly dangerous,” RSF notes.

Turkey, which forced me to exile, stands out in RSF 2025 Index as a prime exemple of “free fall”. Ranked 159th out of 180 countries, it has constantly gone down by 60 points in the past 23 years. Now it is one of those which shares a place at the bottom layer amongst the worst enemies of media freedom.

Turkey today not only imprisons journalists but systematically destroys an honourable profession. Since the Gezi protests in 2013, President Erdoğan’s office has intensified the crackdown on critical scrutiny, dismantling the state broadcaster TRT into a sheer mouthpiece. Critical TV channels — there are only a hanfdful of those — have become the most closely watched and penalized outlets.

After twelve years of repression, the media landscape has been transformed into a “Goebbelsian propaganda machine,” while the small fraction of critical/partisan media (about 5% of the sector) struggles to survive.

Legal actions against journalists, censorship, and the closure of media outlets have become commonplace, stifling dissent and limiting public access to unbiased information.

This decline is not isolated. In Russia, as well as in Belarus and Azerbaijan, all critical media is silenced. Orban’s Hungary follows them on their footsteps.

“In Gaza, the Israeli army has destroyed newsrooms, killed nearly 200 journalists and imposed a total blockade on the strip for over 18 months,” according to RSF.

In India, the government uses the legal system as a weapon against investigative reporting. In Mexico — where cartels and corruption reign — journalism is one of the most dangerous professions there is.

Economic support for independent media, legal protections for journalists, and efforts to counter the dominance of tech giants in the information ecosystem are crucial steps.

Without these measures, the decline in press freedom witnessed in the case of Turkey may become a more widespread phenomenon, threatening the very foundations of democratic societies. In Europe, such dangers can be far closer than one imagines.

A free, independent, pluralistic media is not just any business — it is a public trust, a cornerstone of democracy.

It is free journalism that provides the raw material that makes self-government possible.