Press Freedom Index: Worrying decline

While much of the repression of journalists is by governments, there are threats and pressure from other sources as well

There is a sharp fall in India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index, in continuation of the steady decline seen in the last few years. The country’s position has slipped by 11 places to 161 among 180 countries. The report, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, has downgraded India from a “problematic situation” to the lowest category, which it terms as “very serious”. Political, economic, social, legal, and security-related factors are used to rank the countries. Asia fares the worst in the index, with North Korea and China at the bottom, and China has been described as “the world’s biggest jailer of journalists and press freedom advocates.” India comes in for some particularly strong comments. The report says that “the violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership, all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in the world’s largest democracy.”

The report illustrates its comments with facts and observations. It says Reliance Industries owns more than 70 media houses that are followed by at least 800 million Indians. Industrialist Gautam Adani has taken over the news channel NDTV. Both billionaires are known to have high political links. Four dailies share three quarters of the readership in Hindi, which has the largest number of publications. There is concentration of media ownership in other languages, too. India’s ranking is the worst with respect to the security of journalists. Journalists are persecuted in many ways. Those critical of the government are branded as anti-national and are threatened and harassed with sedition and defamation charges. On an average, three or four journalists are killed every year, and many are arrested and kept in jail. There is a lack of diversity in newsrooms, and women are under-represented in senior positions. Women journalists are targets of online harassment. These are all factors that impinge on media freedom in a real sense.

While much of the repression of journalists is by governments, there are threats and pressure from other sources, such as newspaper managements, political parties, social organisations, criminal gangs and others. It is not easy for journalists and the media to push back against challenges from all these quarters, especially when the government, which should ensure that there is a free environment for the media to operate in, is itself an oppressor. The erosion of media freedom should not be seen in isolation. It is part of the shrinking of other freedoms and rights. The government and its supporters dismiss the poor ranking as biased and politically motivated. The indices should not be dismissed as part of a conspiracy. Instead, they should be taken as reminders of the need for corrective action.