Placards featuring portraits of murdered journalists were used during a February 11, 2016 demonstration, which took place after reporter Anabel Flores was found dead on a highway in Puebla.
Edgard Garrido/Reuters
As recently as 10 years ago, Mexico had a press freedom index on par with the United States. How did everything fall apart so quickly?
After releasing five Papuan political prisoners in May, President Joko Widodo declared Papua open to foreign media. But challenges to media freedom in Papua remain.
Antara News Agency
Although Indonesian President Joko Widodo declared Papua open for foreign media in May this year, government obstacles to access the restive region linger.
The trial of an American journalist in Iran was a craven farce – and a reminder of the brutality with which Tehran still treats journalists.
A soldier votes in last year’s election restoring civilian rule in Fiji, where the media are still struggling to achieve freedom of the press.
Pacific Media Centre/Mads Anneberg
Almost eight months after the much-heralded election to usher Fiji back into democracy mode, the country will mark World Press Freedom Day facing serious questions about its claims to have a free and fair media.
A responsible media is cautious about what leaked information it will publish.
Flickr/Alex BuckyBit Covic
If confidential sources can still be exposed by the government’s new data retention legislation, why risk leaking anything to the media?
Vladimir Putin appears on the Kremlin-backed news network Russia Today. The multi-platform channel has already garnered more than 2 billion views on YouTube, making it the most-watched news network on the video-sharing website.
Kremlin.ru/Wikimedia Commons
Our journalists come in for a lot of stick, what with accusations of political bias from politicians, intrusions on privacy from celebrities, or ‘dumbing down’ of the culture in general. But Peter Greste’s…
Foreign PR campaigns have been waged for decades. Films like 1930’s All Quiet on the Western Front were significantly altered to appease Germany’s Nazi Party.
filmjunk.com
Feature films and television shows notoriously play fast-and-loose with the facts. When prologues proclaim “Based on a True Story,” they’re gracefully implying that what follows is mostly fiction. Awards…
Papers across France have shown their solidarity.
Sebastien Nogier/EPA
Jean-Marie Charon, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
The shock across France at the terrorist attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the hostage situations that have followed have been met with incomprehension. The barbarity of the…
Is it ever okay to depict the assassination of living person?
KCNA/Reuters
Sony’s decision to cancel the Christmas Day release of its film The Interview is drawing harsh criticism from Hollywood’s elite. George Clooney is asking everyone to stand up against the cancellation…
Leading Australian media organisations launched a ‘Right to Know’ campaign in 2007, citing the erosion of free speech by more than 500 laws and regulations. It’s been downhill since then.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
I am reluctant to give more ammunition to Pacific leaders who regard Australia as some kind of exemplar in media freedom – in this case a bad example. On the other hand, truths have to be told: in Australia…
Russians protesting murder of crusading journalist Anna Politkavskaya.
Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine stood talking before an attentive group in a hotel conference room when the doors burst open and six stern-faced government agents strode in and demanded he halt the…
Having used security as a pretext to impose an information blackout on operations involving asylum seekers, the government is broadening its denial of the public’s right to know.
AAP/Quinten Jones
The Abbott government’s latest tranches of national security and counter-terrorism laws represent the greatest attack on the Fourth Estate function of journalism in the modern era. They are worse than…
Journalists face long jail terms for reporting information relating to ‘special intelligence operations’, as declared by ASIO, under the government’s proposed reforms.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) will publish its report on the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 (Cth) sometime during this sitting of parliament…
Treasurer Joe Hockey has commenced defamation proceedings against several Fairfax newspapers over the ‘Treasurer for sale’ story.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Treasurer Joe Hockey’s decision to sue Fairfax Media for defamation over the now-notorious front-page story “Treasurer for sale” raises interesting questions about politicians suing to protect their reputation…
There is a raw interaction of politics, media and the people in Pacific nations such as Vanuatu, scene of this public rally.
David Robie
Today, while the world marks Press Freedom Day, draconian cyber defamation laws, journalist killings and legal gags are growing threats to the media across the Asia-Pacific. Media intersects with the raw…
Silencing dissent: al-Jazeera journalists in a court cage during their trial.
Al-Masry al-Ayoum/EPA
As I write this, 20 journalists – including several al-Jazeera reporters – are on trial in Cairo on charges of spreading disinformation and abetting terrorists. Their alleged crime includes operating without…
So far, thankfully, the peace has held in Crimea. But an information war is already raging in the region. Misinformation; doubtful sources; news published; then corrected – then the correction is corrected…
What’s behind Al Jazeera’s frosty relationship with the Egyptian government?
AAP/Terry Scott
In 1999, then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak visited the small, dusty Al Jazeera compound in a suburb of the Qatari capital of Doha. “This matchbox! All this noise is coming out of this matchbox?” Mubarak…