The Economist May 7th 2022 57
InternationalPressfreedomWhere the truth lies
O
lga rudenko has a litany of worries as
editor of the Kyiv Independent, an on
line newspaper in Ukraine. Since the Rus
sian army invaded in February, more than
20 journalists have been killed. Throwing
aside international conventions, the Rus
sians are targeting reporters.Insurance for
local correspondents is prohibitively ex
pensive, and the paper is struggling to get
hold of helmets, satellite phones and bul
letproof vests. “We are being invaded by
people who hate journalists,” she says.
It’s a triumph that Ms Rudenko and her
team are working at all. Last year they were
worrying about a threat less dramatic than
Russian bombs, but still insidious: a reor
ganisation of the paper which they be
lieved would undermine their editorial in
dependence. The Kyiv Independent was
born after the staff of the Kyiv Post,
Ukraine’s largest Englishlanguage news
paper, suspected that the wealthy owner
was seeking to influence coverage under
pressure from the authorities, an accusa
tion he denied. When they protested, he
fired the whole staff in early November.
Around 30journalists, led by Ms Rudenko,decided to launch an independently fund
ed news outlet. The Kyiv Independenthas
far exceeded their expectations. Since Rus
sian missiles began hailing down on Uk
raine, readers across the globe have been
counting on it. As the war began and inter
est peaked, some 630,000 visitors a day
were reading the Kyiv Independent. It has
raised almost $2m in crowdfunding.
Globally, press freedom is in retreat.
Around 85% of people live in countries
where it has declined over the past five
years, according to analysis by unesco of
data on freedom of expression from the Va
rieties of Democracy (v-dem) Institute.v-
dem gives each country a score from 0
(least free) to 1 (most free). The global aver
age weighted by population peaked at 0.65
in the early 2000s, and then again in 2011,
before falling to 0.49 in 2021. This is the
worst score since 1984, when the cold war
was raging and the two sides were prop
ping up dictators on every continent.
The sharpest decline has come in the
past decade, and has included several of
the most populous countries. China de
clined from very bad (0.26) in 2011 to atrocious (0.08) in 2021. India fell from 0.85 to
0.55; Turkey from 0.54 to 0.15; Egypt from
0.58 to 0.14; Indonesia from 0.83 to 0.68
and Brazil from 0.94 to 0.57. Russia
plunged from 0.51 to 0.31 even before the
war prompted President Vladimir Putin to
crack down more harshly. Ethiopia opened
up after 2018, but a civil war means its score
for 2022 will be woeful.
Several states still deploy oldfashioned
brute force against journalists. In 2021, 488
were behind bars, according to Reporters
Without Borders, a nonprofit group. Many
more were subject to intimidation. “Gov
ernment agents raided my house and
threatened to kill me,” says Lucy Kassa, an
Ethiopian journalist reporting on atroc
ities in Tigray. Ms Kassa fled Ethiopia, and,
like Ms Rudenko and others, she had no
choice but to try new ways of doing jour
nalism. She is continuing to report on Ti
gray from exile. “I have a strong belief that
the truth will find ways to reveal itself, will
fight for itself,” Ms Kassa says. “And I con
sider myself as an instrument of that.”
Even as press freedom has declined ov
er the past decade, the number of journal
ists killed on the job has also fallen, from
76 in 2011 to 46 in 2021. That may be be
cause authoritarian leaders are finding
they can control the news in less grisly
ways. To direct the flow of information,
many use state funding and laws purport
edly meant to guard state security or even
to protect the truth. They often pretend to
allow a free press, and tolerate some inde
pendent voices to reinforce this claim. ButB UDAPEST, HONG KONG, MUMBAI, ST PETERSBURG
Press freedom is retreating worldwide as states develop new means of control