Bangkok and Washington – Press Freedom is at its lowest reflux in the world in more than two decades, journalists without borders said on Friday, while economic pressures shake the foundations of journalism.
The advocacy group, also known as Borders Without Borders or RSF, said that it has classified the world of press freedom as “difficult” for the first time since it started compiling its media index in 2002.
“Without economic independence, there cannot be a free press there,” said RSF in a statement announcing the iteration in 2025 of the press freedom index.
“When the media is tense financially, they are trained in a race to attract the public to the detriment of quality relationships and can be practical to oligarchs and public authorities seeking to exploit them,” he said.
The fervent media close nearly a third of the 180 countries included in the index, said RSF. The media in nations even relatively very well classified such as New Zealand and South Africa are struggling with the challenges of financial viability.
Technological companies such as Google, Meta and Apple absorb an increasingly increasing part of advertising revenues at the same time as they contribute to the spread of manipulated and deceptive content, according to RSF.
President Donald Trump’s second term, said an additional blow, said the group, ending the financing of American public media, notably Voice of America and Radio Free Asia which reported on the countries where authoritarian governments repress independent votes.
The three lower places in the 2025 press freedom index were occupied by China, North Korea and Eritrea. The three main countries, from the first to the third, were respectively Norway, Estonia and the Netherlands.
China dropped six places from the previous year to 178th in the worsening of an already disastrous image.
“China is at the moment the largest jailorate of journalists in the world,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, head of advocacy in Asia-Pacific at RSF.
“They really managed to stop everyone who was quite courageous and who always wanted to report on questions on the ground,” she told RFA.
The erosion of what was a limited press freedom in China began over ten years ago and accelerated under President Xi Jinping, said Bielakowska, while he and the Loyalists concentrated the power of the state in his person.
The situation of media freedom in China is now similar to the total control of the information exerted by the Dynastic Government of North Korea, she said.
The ability of foreign media to operate in China has also become strongly circumscribed.
About 15 years ago, foreign journalists could go to regions that rubbed against the reign of Beijing such as Xinjiang and Tibet, but it is now impossible unless in the context of a propaganda trip supervised by the government, said Bielakowska.
“Not just an authoritarian country, but a truly totalitarian system where no one can speak, no one can report on any questions,” she said. “And journalists can only work like party propaganda.”
The aggressive abolition by independent media China is increasingly emulated in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
Cambodia, an ally of Beijing in Southeast Asia, lowered 10 places in the index at 161st.
His continuous slide reflected persecution and violence against journalists, including the deadly shooter in December 2024 of the environmental journalist Chhoeung Chheung, who was investigating illegal logging.
An eminent Cambodian journalist, Mech Dara, who drew attention to corruption and human rights violations, left the profession after being detained for several weeks last year.
“There have been many journalists like this,” said Bielakowska. “For Mech Dara, he decided to give up journalistic work although he was one of the most popular journalists in Cambodia because he could not continue to work under this type of pressure.”
Published by Mike Firn and Tajun Kang.