COVID-19 raises the threat to a free press here, abroad
Sunday was World Press Freedom Day, a date the United Nations set to celebrate freedom of the press and the defense of media from attacks on their independence.
If there was ever a critical time for fact-based journalism, it’s surely now — in the age of COVID-19. Yet, the pandemic is exacerbating the many crises that threaten such journalism with extinction, in autocracies like China and Russia, but also in democracies like ours.
“Lamestream Media is totally CORRUPT, the Enemy of the People!” President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday, repeating a phrase honed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to label supposed ideological enemies who should be eliminated. (Joe Biden, in comparison, issued a statement praising journalists for “upholding free and open democracies, both at home and around the world.”)
For Trump, however, World Press Freedom Day was just another day to condemn journalists who challenge his lies and deceptions about COVID-19.
For everyone else, it should serve as a vital reminder that the coming few years will be pivotal to the survival of press freedom, now threatened by several crises compounded by COVID-19.
The crises facing “freely reported, independent, diverse and reliable information” are succinctly described in a new report by Reporters Without Borders. “We are entering a decisive decade for journalism,” says the organization’s secretary-general, Christophe Deloire. “The coronavirus pandemic illustrates the negative factors threatening the right to reliable information.”
One crisis is geopolitical, as COVID-19 offers authoritarian regimes a chance to impose measures on frightened publics that might otherwise cause problems. Hungary, as one example, recently passed laws making it easier to prosecute journalists.
China (No. 177 of 180 on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index) is promoting its authoritarian model worldwide as an alternative to liberal democracy — including a “new world media order” in which journalism is tightly controlled.
The pandemic shows the danger of this model: China was able to hide the outbreak by suppressing the investigative journalism that still remained before the crisis. Even still, independent bloggers tried to report it, and Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s free press were able to report about it. Imagine if they disappeared.
Then there’s the technological crisis that permits propaganda and conspiracy theories to compete unimpeded with fact-based journalism. “The pandemic has amplified the spread of rumors and fake news as quickly as the virus itself,” the report notes. This includes state troll armies from Russia (No. 149 in the index) and China that spread rumors that the virus was manufactured by the U.S. military.
In the U.S., online conspiracy theories are promoted by tweets from Trump and his avid supporters, including Fox News commentators.
And then there’s the democratic crisis, in which leading democratic politicians “openly foment hatred of journalists.” In this category, Reporters Without Borders cites Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (No. 107).
Americans may be inured to Trump’s pile-on against factbased media, but the pandemic reveals just how dangerous it is. Reporters Without Borders ranks the U.S. No. 45 in press freedom, which I believe is low. But Trump’s vitriol against solid reporting — redolent of dictator language — will become increasingly dangerous as public anger grows over his dismal handling of COVID-19.
Trump is priming his base to blame “enemies” for his failures. This plays into the fourth crisis cited by Reporters Without Borders, a crisis of trust toward journalists worldwide.
Globally, primed by social media and partisan politicians, the publics have grown increasingly wary of journalists in general. In the U.S., according to a Pew Research Center study, Republicans trust only a few news outlets, including Fox News and the talkradio programs of hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
COVID-19 has accelerated an economic crisis already decimating newspapers, as social media replaced print and ad revenue plummeted. The crisis is destroying advertising and accelerating the layoffs and ownership concentration that already threatened journalists’ independence, here and in Europe and Asia.
It’s hard to imagine what the media scene will look like in one year, but certainly the economics of fact-based media will be even more daunting. Yet, if the COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that the republic won’t survive without a free press capable of challenging lies dispensed by dishonest leaders.
The time for figuring out how to save a free press from collapsing is now.