World Press Freedom Day

AI offers media outlets tools to increase efficiency through task automation, helping newsrooms meet growing demands and remain competitive. However, the financial sustainability of media is becoming more fragile as generative AI platforms repurpose journalistic content without proper compensation, diverting revenue from independent outlets to digital platforms and to AI actors. Among the issues being discussed is fair remuneration for content used by AI systems , with copyright enforcement mechanisms and fair revenue-sharing models. Media outlets are facing how to balance AI use with maintaining good practices and audience trust and engagement . Many have issued codes of conduct stressing respect for audience data, content authenticity, AI use disclosure, transparency, and information integrity.

  The number of attacks taking place online and digitally has increased over the last year, from 14,0% in 2020 to 16.8% in 2021. They occurred in 23 countries and affected a total of 154 media companies, journalists, family members, and journalistic sources. Slovenia , with 13 cases, was the most affected country within the period, followed by Turkey (12, Serbia (10, and the United Kingdom (10. The re‐ spective alerts for all attacks performed online and digitally in the year 2021 in MFRR countries can be viewed here. An increasing number of threats sent via email, on social media, or websites were reported as awareness around this issue grew. Journalists’ and media freedom or ganisations have been warning of the mental health consequences of such threats on media professionals who may feel isolated, at risk, or defenceless in the face of such violent events. The MFRR identified a large majority of the cases (85 as harassment and psychological abuse . This ranges from threaten...

 Media freedom in Europe continued to face major challenges in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this twelvemonth reporting period, the MapMF platform documented 166 different media freedom violations linked in some way to COVID-19. These involved attacks on 252 different persons or entities in 19 countries. Many of these alerts involved phys‐ ical and online attacks on journalists reporting on anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protests across Europe. Sixteen cases were recorded which involved serious attacks on journalists or media workers who then required medical treatment. Overall, more than a quarter of all alerts (26.5%) recorded during 2021 were re‐lated to the pandemic, underscoring the persistent threats that the pandemic faces to independent journalism. The re‐ spective COVID-19 related alerts can be viewed here. These attacks on the free press came in many forms. Nearly one in three incidents (31.9% and 53 alerts) involved physical at‐ tacks, including 16 incidents ...

  In Italy a major concern for media freedom in 2021 was the safety of journalists reporting from anti-vaccine and anti-green pass protests. MapMF recorded 45 alerts, with 72 attacked persons or entities related to media. Hostility against the press including multiple serious physical attacks were documented by MapMF, with some journalists badly injured. Intimidation and harassment of journalists by anti-vaccine groups, both online and offline, was widespread, worsening an already dangerous climate for journalist’s safety. Meanwhile, 26 Mapping Media Freedom | Monitoring Report – 2021 Mapping Media Freedom | Monitoring Report – 2021; 27 vexatious lawsuits and SLAPPs targeting media outlets and threats against individual journalists from organised crime groups remain major concerns. Attacks and threats against journalists covering COVID-19-related protests were documented across the country, from Bo‐ logna and Florence to Rome. Overall, 36% of all alerts in Italy in 2021 were recor...

  In 2021, MapMF documented 12 alerts for Montenegro with 16 attacked persons or entities related to the media. Following a trend across Europe, a vast majority of these attacks (11) were perpetrated by private individuals. Male and female professionals were equally affected. Political as well as nationalist polarisa‐ tion are blatant in Montenegro through a number of alerts. In the case of a reporting team from the public broadcaster Radio-television (RTV), a right-wing nationalist group intimidated and insulted the journalists near the coastal town of Budva. For several weeks, the nationalist group had organised numerous protests over changes to the Law on Citizenship, which would grant Montenegrin citizenship to Russian and Serbian citizens living in the country. The attacked journalists had been caught up in one of their blockades. During another political event in the city of Niksic, on the night of local elections, Vijesti journalist Jelena Jovanović was attacked by an agg...

  Media freedom in Slovenia continued to decline in 2021 under pressure from the government of Prime Minister Janez Janša. The country saw the seventh highest number of alerts on the MapMF platform with 29 alerts and 41 attacked persons or entities related to media, leading the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) to launch an online fact-finding mission in May to assess the situation. Increasing pressure on independent journalism during this time centred on the financial suffocation of the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) and increasing political in‐ terference at the public broadcaster. Con‐ cerningly, many of these violations were recorded while Slovenia held the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.  At the beginning of the year, UKOM, the Government Communications Directorate, suspended the financing of the STA for the second time in three months, in what media rights groups called an attempt to destabilise the agency through financial blackmail. The PM and leading...