Decline in media freedom ‘hand-in-hand’ with democratic backsliding

Media freedom, and access to information, are fundamental rights at the heart of open societies. In 2025, these rights are facing significant and sustained assaults. Governments and political leaders around the world are harassing and attacking journalists, viral disinformation and conspiracy campaigns are polluting information ecosystems, and the journalism business model is failing.

The media under threat

Last year, more than 120 journalists were killed and 500 imprisoned. Countless more were arbitrarily detained, censored, and targeted with lawsuits and online harassment campaigns, designed to intimidate and silence. Meanwhile, public media organisations have been politicised and influenced by political elites, and had their funding threatened.

A shocking 80% of the world’s population has less freedom of expression today than they did in 2000.

As the dust settles on 2024, the bumper ‘year of elections’, we are also seeing a rise in the number of leaders who verbally attack and criticise the media – including in the United States and Europe – historic champions of free speech.

Famously, during his 2024 Presidential election campaign, Donald Trump said he wanted to jail journalists and close down major news networks. At one rally, he even joked that he “wouldn’t mind” if an assassin shot the journalists standing in front of him.

These attacks are amplified by new alliances between political elites and technology platforms that increasingly set the rules of engagement for the global public sphere. Elon Musk, in particular, is using X to criticise the ‘mainstream media’. Meanwhile, Meta has announced that it will cease fact checking on its platforms in the United States, and relax its community regulations.

Declining media freedom is also compounded by the extreme economic pressure facing the news industry. Over the past two decades, the advertising revenue that once supported independent journalism has moved to social media and online platforms, resulting in staggering job cuts and newsroom closures.

In the UK, the revenue for traditional local journalism is today roughly only a quarter what it was in 2007. While in the United States, there have been so many newsroom closures that an estimated 55 million Americans now live in ‘news deserts’: areas where there is limited or no access to local news at all.

Media deserts and misinformation: Why does this matter?

Journalists are the traditional ‘fourth estate’ that hold elites to account. They help to expose corruption and abuses of power, and ensure that civil rights and freedoms are protected.

Research shows that, in ‘news desserts’ without local media, voter turn-out goes down, political partisanship goes up, and local politicians, courts and business are not scrutinised. One study has even shown that, as local newspapers close down, oil and gas plants pollute more.

Most significantly, declining media freedom goes hand in hand with democratic backsliding. Governments that seize and silence the media face less scrutiny; and it becomes easier to disregard the rights and freedoms of citizens and manipulate election outcomes.

More generally, when elites relentlessly attack and criticise the ‘fake news’ media, they create confusion about what sources of information can be trusted, and this makes populations more vulnerable to propaganda, mis- and disinformation.

This misinformation causes real harm – as seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. It can also exacerbate crises and conflict, as it has in Ukraine and Syria. Finally, misinformation can create social division and undermine democratic institutions, including through election interference by foreign actors. A free and critical news media – that is trusted by audiences – helps to insulate society against these harms.

For all these reasons, as the OSCE argues, “There is no security without media freedom”.

Preserving media freedom and security: What next?

States have made numerous pledges to protect and promote media freedom – through fora including the United Nations and UNESCO, the OECD, The International Partnership for Information and Democracy, and the US-led Summit for Democracy, to name a few.

Notably, in 2019, then Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt made media freedom the UK’s number one foreign policy priority. He appointed Amal Clooney as the UK’s Special Envoy for Media Freedom, and he launched the Media Freedom Coalition (MFC) with Canada as the co-chair.

As media freedom continues to decline, it is crucial that the UK and its allies follow through on these pledges. There have been endless summits, days, and reports documenting the decline of media freedom. What we need now is action.

This means unequivocally condemning those who attack journalism – be those attacks physical, legal, verbal, or through online harassment. It means going beyond questions of journalism safety to focus on media funding, the regulation of online platforms, media literacy, and methods for countering more subtle forms of influence and control.

The fight for media freedom will require significant political and financial capital. Yet it could not be more important for democratic survival.

This article was originally published by The Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) as part of a collaborative mini-series with City St George's, University of London on the Drivers of Global Disorder Today. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and may not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

The author, Professor Mel Bunce, is Professor of International Journalism and Politics at City St George’s, University of London. Her research examines international news, media freedom, and the relationship between journalism and democracy. She is currently the Deputy Dean of the School of Communication & Creativity at City St George’s, University of London, and she was previously the Head of City’s renowned Department of Journalism. Mel holds a Doctorate in Politics from the University of Oxford, and is a Senior Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Association.