World Press Freedom Continues Decline at a Time of Upheaval

Media freedoms across the world are facing new threats in 2025 that watchdog groups say could endanger the free flow of accurate information and stifle dissenting voices. Nongovernmental organizations that track worldwide media say artificial intelligence, disinformation, authoritarianism, political and economic tensions, and violence are all contributing to this dynamic—severely affecting how journalists do their job.

Authoritarian powers including China and Russia preside over some of the harshest anti-media systems. Watchdog groups also cite troubling trends in Western democracies, notably the United States, where they accuse the Donald Trump administration of taking actions that threaten independent fact-based news reporting domestically and internationally. The administration defends its approach as challenging what it calls entrenched media bias in the country.

These developments occur as rights advocates mark Press Freedom Day on May 3. The date celebrates the anniversary of the 1992 signing of the Declaration of Windhoek, a decree promoting an independent and pluralistic African press. Thirty-three years later, this day provides an important reflection point on the status of global press freedoms and the role of journalism.

What is the status of global press freedom today?

Leading media freedom watchdogs say journalists are living in an increasingly difficult—and dangerous—time. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) labeled the conditions for practicing journalism in 2025 as “difficult” or “very serious” in over half of the world’s countries, and satisfactory in fewer than a quarter, the worst ratio in their history of recording this data.

A more hostile political context and economic fragility appear to be the main factors.

“Press freedom around the world is being threatened by the very people who should be its guarantors—political authorities,” RSF’s 2024 report says. Further illustrating this issue, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded its second-highest count of journalists imprisoned last year since it began tracking these jailings three decades ago. 

“There’s a combination of access, safety, and political pressure that journalists are facing around the world,” said CFR’s Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow Elise Labott, who was a foreign affairs correspondent for CNN.

The rights group Freedom House sounded the alarm in 2019 that journalism had been deteriorating for years, calling media freedom a “downward spiral” that began unraveling a decade prior. Freedom House and other groups have also long linked press freedoms and the state of democracy, a connection that goes back to the original Windhoek Declaration. Notably, the rights watchdog has catalogued nineteen straight years of democratic decline, and is itself now under threat with sweeping cuts in funding from the Trump administration.

RSF’s 2025 report, released today, cites the economic constraints on the struggling journalism industry as the most insidious factor to journalists’ ability to do their job.

How has violence against journalists played a role? 

Going back thirty years, CPJ said it documented the most journalist deaths in 2024. The committee said that these deaths raise fears about safety and deters transparency by discouraging journalism as a field. 

This has a cascading effect for the public, as “fewer journalists means less information for citizens seeking the truth,” CPJ wrote in a special report. 

Conflict has played a dominant role in this backslide: Last year’s media freedom outlook was heavily affected by Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war. Almost 70 percent of the deaths reported by CPJ in 2024 occurred in Israel. Since then, the industry has seen a record number of targeted violence against journalists and the media, mostly Palestinians killed during the war. 

The evolving political situation during and after the biggest election year in history has affected press freedoms as well. Last year, half of the world’s population cast ballots in seventy national elections. Some of these elections were accompanied by violence against journalists and increased the level of hostility faced by the media—as seen in Bangladesh and Mozambique. 

In other places where the military seized power in a coup—such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—the ruling juntas have since clamped down on media freedom. Burkina Faso dropped by nearly thirty places and Niger by nearly twenty in the RSF’s World Press Freedom Index last year. A pull toward the far right in some European countries, including Italy and Germany, has also put increased pressure on journalists that once enjoyed greater freedoms. 

What are the media freedom trends in the United States?

Watchdog groups have tracked a decline in the United States in recent years arising from a mix of factors, including economic hardships for news businesses and growing interest in partisan media—which threatens objectivity in reporting and in turn feeds the decline in public confidence. RSF reports that “roughly one-third of the American newspapers operating in 2005 have now shuttered.” 

But media outlets, as well as press freedom organizations, have raised particular concern this year about the Trump administration’s approach to media.

His administration moved to ban the Associated Press and other wire services from fully covering the Oval Office (which faced legal challenges), and Trump appointees on the Federal Communications Commission have launched investigations into various media organizations. The administration is also threatening state-supported news sources like Voice of America. On May 1, just two days before Press Freedom Day, Trump announced he would halt federal funding for National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service.

What are some other countries to watch?

Media clampdowns have persisted in some countries for years. Four of the top five countries imprisoning journalists have been longtime offenders, including Belarus, China, Myanmar, and Russia, with Israel rising to second on the CPJ’s list last year. The inclusion of a democratic country like Israel on this list is rare, but RSF and other watchdog groups, including domestic ones in Israel, say the government’s war against Hamas and clampdown on journalists have made it an area of significant concern for the media. 

China notoriously censors the media, and RSF (which ranks China at 178) calls the country “the world’s largest prison for journalists.” Russia, too, has banned most outlets or labeled them as “foreign agents” or “undesirable organizations.” China and Russia (scoring 162 on the index) are also accused of regularly meddling in other countries’ media, from the United States to several African countries, as they attempt to stoke anti-West sentiment and spur disinformation. 

Georgia appears to be following Russia’s path, with a significant drop in its indices of freedom after the passage of a Kremlin-like “foreign agent” law that experts say quashes free speech. 

It is not all bad news, however. Ukraine, whose allies have heavily scrutinized it for corruption issues, has made improvements in journalist safety and in its political environment, according to RSF’s index. Qatar also made changes that eased political pressures on the media, although the Middle East remains a notoriously difficult place for journalism.

The Americas have not seen significant improvements, but Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has been vocal about being a proponent of free press—in contrast to her predecessors. Still, Mexico remains a dangerous place for journalists. Latin America’s growth in organized crime groups have hurt democracies across the region, which has in turn eroded freedom of expression and journalist safety, such as in El Salvador and Guatemala. 

Will Merrow created the graphics for this article.