#readwise # Press Freedom Is Under Attack. It Needs Defenders ![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article4.6bc1851654a0.png) ## Metadata - Author: [[economist.com]] - Full Title: Press Freedom Is Under Attack. It Needs Defenders - URL: https://www.economist.com/leaders/press-freedom-is-under-attack-it-needs-defenders/21809133 - This leader accompanied a larger piece. [[Press Freedom Is Under Attack]] ## Highlights - **HERE’S A THOUGHT experiment. If Russia had a free press, how many Russians would support Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Here’s another: how might the early days of covid-19 have unfolded if the virus had first emerged in a country with a free press, rather than China?** Could the government of such a country have hushed it up for those crucial early weeks? - around the world, **press freedom is in decline. Around 85% of people live in countries where it has been constricted in the past five years. It is now as hamstrung as it was in 1984**, during the cold war. **The nature of censorship has evolved since then, however.** Hundreds of reporters are still jailed, and dozens are killed each year. But most modern autocrats at least pay lip service to the idea of a free press, and choose more subtle weapons with which to attack it. **State advertising budgets are lavished on fawning outlets. Critical ones get tax audits and fines for defamation. Such harassment can tip struggling media firms into the red. Some may then be bought by ruling-party cronies, who may not mind if their television stations lose money, so long as they please the people who dole out public-works contracts.** Mr Putin pioneered this approach; it has been widely imitated. - **How can defenders of press freedom fight back? An easy place to start would be for liberal governments to scrap archaic laws that criminalise defamation**, which are still surprisingly common. They should also **curb bogus lawsuits**, as the European Commission is currently contemplating. Next, **independent media need to find new sources of funding**. Charities can chip in, as can crowdfunding and rich proprietors who care about free speech. ... In more repressive places the task is harder, but technology can help. Where reporting on the ground is too risky, satellite imagery and big data sets allow journalists to pull together stories from afar. Free countries should offer them asylum, and a safe place to keep working. Where censorship is tight, citizens can use virtual private networks to access blocked content and online tools to capture web pages before they are censored.