Press here for freedom

In good news for crooks and tyrants, if not lovers of democracy, press freedom is in retreat globally. Late last month, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index was unveiled to reveal that press freedom is now at a 25-year low. After analysing 180 countries, RSF found that more than half the world’s countries can now be categorised as ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ for press freedom. You wouldn’t read about it, right?

Take, for instance, this troubling 2026 assessment of a specific country once regarded as a bastion of journalistic liberty: ‘Press freedom is not constitutionally guaranteed [and] a hyperconcentration of the media combined with occasional pressure from the authorities on media professionals endanger public interest journalism.’ Sadly, that country is Australia, which this year slipped four places to 33rd from 29th. Back in 2002, Australia was in 12th place. That’s a mighty fall, and that fall is due largely to oppressive laws curtailing the right to information and implementing surveillance. The surveillance laws, which include the metadata retention scheme, prompted Peter Greste to argue last year that though he was jailed for his journalism in Egypt, it’s Australia’s surveillance regime that’s a serious worry.

From top (#1 Norway) to bottom (#180 Eritrea), this year’s Index is worrying. As the RSF reports, the US fell seven places. Peru and Ecuador are plummeting. And Palestine, where at least 70 journalists have been killed while on the job since 2023, is at 156th. It makes you pine for the good ol’ days of 2002, when 20% of the global population lived in a land where press freedom was categorised as ‘good’. Today, less than 1% of the world’s population lives in a ‘good’ country.

For Anne Bocandé, the RSF’s editorial director, the Index is a call to action. And to keyboards. As she wrote: ‘Authoritarian states, complicit or incompetent political powers, predatory economic actors and under-regulated online platforms are directly and overwhelmingly responsible for the global decline in press freedom. Given this context, inaction is a form of endorsement. The ball is in the court of democracies and their citizens. It is up to them to stand in the way of those who seek to silence the press. The spread of authoritarianism isn’t inevitable.’

Indeed it isn’t. Greste has made it his mission to see Australia introduce a Media Freedom Act. Given that our Constitution has an unfortunate blind spot when it comes rights and freedoms, a Media Freedom Act would be a good way to reverse our slide down the RSF Index.