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Celebrating World Press Freedom Day 2018
As journalists, media experts, and freedom of expression activists gather in Accra, Ghana, to celebrate World Press Freedom Day, we hear from current and former National Endowment for Democracy fellows on the integral role of media for democracy in their countries and globally. This year’s global... |
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Stoking the flames: Loaded media coverage aggrav...
While China and India prepare for next month’s BRICS summit, tensions continue to build between the two high in the Himalayas. At the disputed border of China, India, and Bhutan, Chinese and Indian forces are closing out their third month of a bitter standoff. As recently as late July, Indian repo... |
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With Mainstream Media Weakened in Bolivia, Socia...
By Raul Peñaranda U. In February 2016, the independent Bolivian news agency ANF, where I work as managing editor, revealed that vice president Alvaro García Linera had not graduated from Mexico’s prestigious UNAM university with a degree in mathematics, as he had been claiming for decades. AN... |
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How Romania’s independent media woke up its re...
As January came to a close, Romania’s government met late at night on the last day of the month to approve an emergency ordinance that decriminalized cases of official misconduct, or simply put: corruption. In the weeks leading up to this, a few members of the Romanian independent media heard whis... |
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Five reasons why direct assistance is more vital...
By Chiranuch Premchaiporn In July 2008, I was forced to post an urgent call on our website – one that all independent media outlets dread: “We’re running out of money, we need your support to save Prachatai.” As the director of Prachatai, an independent media outlet in Thailand that I ha... |
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Diversifying Internet Governance with a Focus on...
Seeing as the Internet is now, in many countries, the primary conduit for the circulation of independent journalism, how it is governed will impact both media development and press freedom. Will global Internet policies foster the free circulation of information? Will they be structured in ways that... |
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5 Takeaways for Improving Media Coverage for Syr...
By Madeline Wilson Rula Asad, Caroline Ayoub, and Milia Eidmouni are tired of seeing the same image of a worn-down Syrian woman splashed across front pages around the world. The three women are all deeply involved in the Syrian media landscape; Asad and Eidomoni co-founded the Syrian Female Journali... |
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Divides and Nastiness Aside: The (few) advantage...
I lived in Beirut for over two years starting in 2012, where I worked on grassroots empowerment initiatives with a Lebanese and Syrian NGO. Media is a central part of life in Beirut, and Lebanese have a complicated obsession with their media. TV and radio relentlessly blast the insults being hurled ... |
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In Bangladesh “the term ‘blogger’ has beco...
Around the world online freedoms are being threatened both by states and violent criminal organizations that are seeking to repress free speech. One glaring example is that of the endangered bloggers in Bangladesh who have been threatened, harassed, and killed. In 2015 alone, Islamic extremists have... |
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Soft censorship has a hard impact on free media
By Andrew Heslop, Director, Press Freedom, WAN-IFRA By using financial and administrative power to pressure media outlets, punish critical reporting, and reward favorable coverage, biased government interventions in media sectors not only distort the market but also make it difficult for media to ex... |