The Guardian view on press freedom: authoritarians target journalism because it matters | Editorial

Lina Attalah is an influential Egyptian journalist. Yet until last month, even she was unaware of a major and concerning piece of news: her own conviction. In 2024, a court issued her a one-year sentence for “spreading false news” and running a website without a licence – which she had repeatedly sought to obtain – after trying her in absentia, even though she was in the country. Ms Attalah learned of the case only after she was separately tried in October, resulting in a large fine and an order for the closure of the Mada Masr website. She faces retrial later this month.

Meanwhile, the entire newsroom of the fact-checking website Matsadash remain in detention weeks after authorities snatched the six journalists on charges including joining and financing a terrorist group and spreading false news. Their lawyers say that they have been tortured and forced to record fabricated confessions.

On Monday, Russia finally succeeded in silencing the famed Novaya Gazeta, which had spent decades battling growing repression. Six of its journalists, including Anna Politkovskaya, paid for their coverage with their lives. But the newspaper continued until, stripped of its newsroom, donation platforms and right to publish, it was forced to turn the lights off. (The separate Novaya Gazeta Europe, founded by many of its alumni, continues.)

These cases are part of a wider pattern. Press freedom is at its lowest ebb for a quarter of a century, Reporters Without Borders said this spring, judging more than half of the 180 countries it surveys to have “difficult” or “very serious” conditions for journalists. The rising tide of war worldwide is also increasing the pressures and dangers: the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded a new peak of 129 deaths of reporters and other media workers in 2025. Unesco said last week that almost nine out of 10 killings of journalists go unpunished.

High-quality journalism has never been more necessary in a world of rising conflict, AI slop and malicious fabrications spreading on platforms run by big tech firms who barely nod to ethical responsibilities. As Ms Attalah herself has pointed out, the disappearance of professional media organisations enlarges the space for conspiracies and disinformation.

Yet while the US previously pressed the case of threatened journalists overseas, sometimes helping to ease their conditions, it is now led by a man who has called news media “the enemy of the American people”, whose FBI raided a correspondent’s home in January, and who is currently pursuing a $10bn lawsuit against the BBC. Donald Trump has also sought to dismantle federally funded organisations which were an important source of independent reporting on many repressive nations.

This week, an appeals court panel ruled that the administration had illegally fired the head of Voice of America. VoA, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe have all struggled on thanks to dedicated staff, though hugely diminished. Recent elections in Serbia, Brazil and the US are evidence that journalism, alongside activism, can stem the erosion of democracy. Thousands of people protested in Turkey last month against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s media crackdown. Large parts of the public still want the truth and, against the odds, courageous journalists worldwide persist in finding it out and sharing it. That authoritarians target them so relentlessly only testifies to their importance.