CMDS and Freedom House Panel on Troubled State of Press Freedom in Central Europe
CMDS and Freedom House organized a panel discussion on May 21 to consider some of the conclusions of the recent Freedom House report, Freedom of the Press 2015. Ath event, CMDS also launched Internet Freedom 2014: Visegrad Four, a report co-authored by CMDS that was undertaken to raise the public profile of Internet freedom and censorship issues in the Visegrad countries and internationally. The discussion, which was moderated by András Pethő, co-founder and editor of Direkt36, offered a range of perspectives from journalists and scholars on the global deterioration in press freedom, and regional challenges and threats to the independence of journalists and media outlets.
In her introductory remarks, Jennifer Dunham, project manager of Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press and Freedom of the World said that the Freedom House report painted a “grim picture” of media conditions around the world. Dunham pointed to a graph from the report showing a fairly steady decline in press freedom since 2004. The overwhelming majority of the world’s population live in countries that are not free (44 percent) or partly free (42 percent); only 14 percent of the world’s population live in countries that are “free.” Dunham noted that the decline in 2014 had been the steepest since 2005. The report identifies four reasons for the global decline in press freedom: a greater number and more restrictive laws; physical violence and threats against journalists; pressure as a result of changes in ownership of media outlets; and increased use of propaganda by states and non-state actors.
Sylvana Habdank-Kołaczkowska, regional specialist and the director of Nations in Transit, Freedom House’s annual survey of democratic governance from Central Europe to Central Asia focused in her remarks on recent trends in Central Europe. She agreed with Dunham that pressure through ownership and increased use of propaganda by state and non-state actors were primarily responsible for the decline in media freedoms in Central Europe. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was singled out in the report for having “continued to exert pressure on media owners to influence coverage.” Habdank-Kołaczkowska pointed out that there were other countries in the “Eurasia” region where the situation was particularly bad includingAzerbaijan, which she described as a country that was “masquerading” as a democracy.
Péter Bajomi-Lázár, visiting lecturer at SPP and the editor of the Hungarian media studies quarterly Médiakutató, said that recent trends were not new. He noted that there was good investigative journalism taking place in Hungary, but it needed to be supported by an appropriate judicial framework. He also, however, criticized other journalists who he said had turned from being “watchdogs to lapdogs.”
Director of CMDS’s Civil Society and Technology Project Kate Coyer presented the Internet Freedom 2014: Visegrad Four, a recent report on the state of internet freedom in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, led by Transitions and PASOS (Policy Association for an Open Society). The report was produced by Gábor Polyák (Mérték Média Monitor), Kate Coyer (CMDS), and Joost van Beek (CMDS). Coyer explained that for many years governments restricted traditional media outlets but ignored the internet. This is no longer the case and so the internet is no longer the “free” space it once was. Coyer listed a number of recommendations for actions that could and should be taken to combat the efforts to restrict internet freedom including the decriminalization of defamation and libel; no reintroduction of the internet tax; clarity over vaguely worded regulations that leave room for misuse and encourage self-censorship; better transparency of decision making.
In his remarks, András Pethő noted that he had personally experienced the effect of some of the recent trends in Hungary. He resigned from Origo, a Hungarian news portal where he worked for many years, in June 2014 to protest the dismissal of the editor in chief after it published an article on state corruption. He also remarked that this is a growing trend in the region, with more and more journalists leaving their positions where they are no longer provided independence and freedom. He concluded the discussion by asking panelists – as a journalist: what can members of the press do in order to improve the situation? Jennifer Dunham replied and emphasized as a final message on press freedom and the global trends in media independence that journalists and civil society should relentlessly keep doing what they are doing, continue investigating and raising the alarm, pushing back against oppressive laws.
