Reporters Without Borders is seeking donations to its campaign to hold tech companies to the same ethical standards as news publishers, suggesting without it the click-driven ad model is a threat to reliable and accurate news. Currently, social media companies are not legally liable for their content, as are publishers, and generally argue they are not published, but rather platforms allowing others to publish speech.
From Myanmar to Annapolis, reporters were harassed, arrested and even killed for doing their jobs. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 45 journalists were killed in 2018 because of their work. Reporters Without Borders put the figure slightly higher. By its tally, more professional journalists were killed in connection with their work in the first nine months of 2018 than in all of 2017.
Long accustomed to chronicling threats against the media in other countries, free press organizations are turning their attention to extreme rhetoric and threatened violence against reporters at home as President Donald Trump and his allies ramp up their attacks on the mainstream media.
The United States’ ranking for press freedom declined last year, driven in part by Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media, which also triggered a decline in other democracies, an international media organization said Wednesday. Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the World Press Freedom Index based on its assessment of the legal environment and government threats to journalists, ranked the United States 43rd out of 180 nations.
According to Reporters Without Borders, 66 journalists were murdered this year, bringing to 720 the number killed in connection with their work in the past 10 years. A total of 119 journalists were kidnapped this year, an increase of more than 35% on last year’s figure. Forty journalists are currently being held hostage.
