Informational propaganda, distrust of journalists, trivialization of disinformation circuits… In its annual world ranking of press freedom, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed, Tuesday, May 3, by the amplification of the “information chaos”particularly related to “a double polarization”.
On the one hand “media polarization”with the “development of opinion media on the model of [la chaîne conservatrice américaine] Fox News and the trivialization of disinformation circuits », leading to divisions within countries; the other, “polarization between states” in between, “on the one hand, open societies and, on the other, despotic regimes that control their media and platforms”of which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most eloquent manifestation.
Of the 180 countries studied by the NGO, twelve integrate the red list of territories “in very serious condition” for freedom of the press, including Russia (155e) and Belarus (153e). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 is “emblematic of the phenomenon”according to RSF, since it was “prepared by a propaganda war”.
The organization recalls that “no less than five journalists and media workers died as a result of shooting during the first month of the Russian offensive”. Beyond the human dramas, the Russian forces have “deliberately targeted sources of information in the occupied territories”emphasizes RSF, which has changed its survey methodology, which is now based on a vision of press freedom based on five criteria: political context, legal framework, economic context, socio-cultural context and security.
Due to the war in Ukraine, RSF has also updated its data, in order to take into account in its ranking the months from January to March 2022. In March, in a letter sent to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the NGO also highlighted the “repeated character” attacks against radio and television buildings in kyiv and in the rest of Ukraine, in Korosten, Lutsk and Kharkiv.
“The editor of RT [ex-Russia Today]Margarita Simonian, revealed the bottom of her thought in a broadcast of the Russia One channel asserting that ‘no great nation can exist without control of information'”, underlines the secretary general of RSF, Christophe Deloire. “The establishment of media armament in authoritarian countries annihilates the right to information of their citizens, but it is also the corollary of the rise of tensions on the international level, which can lead to the worst wars”he continues, before promoting ” and new deal for journalism, as proposed by the Forum on Information and Democracy, by adopting an appropriate legal framework, including a system for protecting democratic informational spaces”.
Russian takeover
This attack on freedom of the press is also being played out in Russia where “the power assumes total control of information through the establishment of extensive wartime censorship, the blocking of the media and a hunt for recalcitrant journalists, forcing them into mass exile”recalls RSF, also referring to “the toughening of the law on media ‘foreign agents'”. While this offensive against the independent media began several years ago, the danger has increased with the recent adoption of new legislation, including in particular the law which punishes up to fifteen years in prison the dissemination of “fake news” on the action of the Russian army.
A Russian stranglehold that extends to neighboring countries, in particular Belarus, placed at the 153e ranking position. Since the controversial re-election of Alexander Lukashenko on August 9, 2020, “more than twenty media employees are languishing in prison” et “independent journalists continue to be massively persecuted for their work”deplores the NGO, referring to the hijacking of a plane, on May 23, 2021, “to arrest an opposition journalist who had chosen exile”.
Caucasian media “are sometimes blocked by the Russian regulator”when those of Central Asia “are under pressure from local authorities for more ‘neutral’ coverage of the conflict”, further specifies RSF. “In Turkmenistan [177e]one of the most closed countries in the world and still at the bottom of the rankings, the media, all controlled by the state, ignore the war”says the NGO.
Very significant disparities in Europe
With regard to Europe, RSF highlights “very significant disparities”with a territory where “two extremes”. If Norway (1is), Denmark (2e) and Sweden (3e) remain at the top of the ten highest ranked countries in the world, the Netherlands leave this ranking to appear at the 28e square. In last place in Europe, we also find Greece (108e), which replaces Bulgaria, ranked 91e This year.
RSF, which specifies that these developments are linked in particular to its new calculation methods, also explains them by three phenomena: the return of murders of journalists in the European Union, virulent hostility towards reporters on the part of demonstrators opposed to the measures health during the Covid-19 pandemic and the toughening of freedom-killing measures against journalists.
“Giorgos Karaivaz, in Greece, and Peter R. de Vries, in the Netherlands, were coldly shot dead in mafia style in the heart of two European metropolises”underlines RSF, then evoking “a large number of physical attacks in Germany (16e), in France (26e), in Italy (58e) and in the Netherlands”. Finally, the NGO mentions the anti-media measures taken in Slovenia (54e), in Poland (66e), in Hungary (85e), in Albania (103e) and in Greece.
The “Fox-newsisation” of France
In France (26e), as in all democratic regimes, the NGO notes a “renewed social and political tensions, accelerated by social networks and new opinion media”. In April, the NGO appealed to the Council of State “to challenge the refusal of the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication [Arcom] to act against the shortcomings of [la chaîne] CNews to its obligations ».
In October 2021, RSF denounced the methods of Vincent Bolloré, following the broadcast of a shocking short documentary on the entrepreneur’s methods of intimidation on freedom of information. “Internally, the ‘fox-newsisation’ of the media is a fatal danger for democracies, because it undermines the bases of civil harmony and of a tolerant public debate”, is alarmed the secretary general of RSF.
Finally, in February 2021, the coup in Burma, one of the most repressive countries for the press, “brutally set the situation of journalists back ten years”placing the country at 176e place in the ranking, alongside North Korea (180e), Eritrea (179e), of Iran (178e), Turkmenistan (177e) and China (175e).
“Beijing has used its legislative arsenal to confine its population and cut it off from the rest of the world, and particularly that of Hong Kong (148e), which is significantly down in the rankings”also notes RSF.