Bognar on Press Freedom and Covid-19

“If masks are a symbol of the crisis, looking behind the mask has come to symbolize journalists’ resistance to the abuse of power and the sheer incompetence of those in decision making positions,” Eva Bognar, Senior Program Officer and Researcher at CMDS writes in her article, ‘As press freedom suffers with Covid-19, journalists must look behind the masks of power’, published by the Ethical Journalism Network.

As she argues, providing trustworthy information is critical, so, the watchdog role of journalism may seem secondary, but it is “just what we need,” because “while we are preoccupied with life under quarantine and the challenges of multiple levels of insecurity, some governments use Covid-19 to advance their agenda by legitimizing illegitimate ways of governance.”