press

Reporting from Washington — During a testy White House briefing Thursday, a reporter challenged Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to counter President Trump’s claim that the American press is the “enemy of the people.” She wouldn’t.

The heated exchange between Sanders and CNN’s chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, came near the end of a briefing on Russia’s attempted interference in the midterm elections, and just hours after Ivanka Trump unhesitatingly broke with her father in a public interview, telling her questioner that she does not believe that the media is the enemy.

Acosta told Sanders, “I think it would be a good thing if you were to say right here, at this briefing, that the press — the people who are gathered in this room right now, doing their jobs every day, asking questions of officials like the ones you brought forward earlier — are not the enemy of the people.”

“I think we deserve that,” he added.

“I think the president has made his position known,” Sanders replied, proceeding to express her own disdain at length. She told Acosta that it was “ironic” that “you and the media attack the president for his rhetoric when they frequently lower the level of conversation in this country.”

Sanders claimed that media outlets “incite anger” and have “personally” attacked her, adding that she was unfairly ridiculed at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner in April by the comedian that the organization hired to headline the event.

“As far as I know, I’m the first press secretary in the history of the United States that’s required Secret Service protection,” she said.

“Tell that to the five dead people in Annapolis!” another reporter shouted, referring to the employees of the Capital newspaper who were shot dead in their Annapolis, Md., office in June.

Acosta followed up, giving Sanders another chance to disavow Trump’s claim.

“For the sake of this room, the people who are in this room, this democracy, this country, all the people around the world are watching what you’re saying, Sarah,” he told her. “The president of the United States should not refer to us as the enemy of the people.”

Sanders didn’t yield. She said she appreciated Acosta’s “passion,” but reiterated that Trump had made his position on the matter clear. Then she moved on to the next question. And, as the briefing ended, Acosta walked out.

A much different exchange played out earlier in the day, when Ivanka Trump was interviewed before an audience in Washington by Mike Allen, the executive editor of Axios, a news website.

“Do you think that we’re the enemy of the people?” Allen asked her.

The president’s daughter, who is also his senior White House advisor but — unlike Sanders — doesn’t have to be fearful of her job security, responded, “No, I do not.”

“That’s not a view that’s shared in your family,” Allen pressed, as the audience laughed.

“I have some sensitivity around why people have concerns and gripe, especially when they feel targeted. But, no, I do not feel that the media is the enemy of the people,” Trump said.

In a tweet later Wednesday, President Trump sought to suggest that he and his daughter were in complete agreement, and said that she had given the right response.

But then he repeated the accusation: “It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!”

The latest from Washington »

@ElizaFawcett

What Five Years of Directives Add Up To

On August 10, 2026, Reporters Without Borders marked five years of Taliban rule with an assessment that Afghanistan has become, in the organization’s words, a prison for information. The report catalogs more than twenty national directives and a long list of provincial decrees, most delivered verbally rather than published, that have progressively stripped Afghan journalism of independence. The starkest new detail is legal rather than administrative. A Code of Criminal Procedure quietly enacted in January 2026 now punishes insulting the country’s supreme leader with thirty nine lashes and a year in prison, and insulting the wider leadership with twenty lashes and six months. Afghanistan sits at one hundred seventy fifth of one hundred eighty countries in RSF’s 2026 World Press Freedom Index, alongside North Korea, Eritrea and China, as global press freedom overall falls to its lowest point in twenty five years.

From Verbal Orders to Written Law

The Taliban’s approach to media control has moved through recognizable phases since retaking Kabul in August 2021. Eleven rules issued that September gave authorities broad power over what could be published. Restrictions escalated from there: a November 2021 ban on interviewing regime critics, a March 2022 prohibition on rebroadcasting Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and a July 2022 declaration by supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada that criticizing officials contradicts Islamic law, which recast basic accountability as religious transgression. Afghanistan’s 2015 Press Law, the last formal legal protection for journalists, was repealed in April 2024. What followed was an acceleration rather than a pause. September 2024 rules banned live political programming and limited on air guests to Taliban approved voices. A July 2024 law prohibiting broadcast images of living beings has since spread to more than twenty provinces. Women have been pushed out of the profession in stages, from mandatory face covering for television presenters in 2021 to a March 2025 Kandahar order banning women’s voices from radio entirely.

The Shift From Deniable Pressure to Permanent Law

What separates the January 2026 Code of Criminal Procedure from everything that preceded it is durability. Verbal orders and provincial decrees can be denied, reversed or applied unevenly, and much of what RSF documents over the past five years was communicated exactly that way, through unpublished instructions passed down from de facto ministries rather than through any formal legislative process. A criminal code cannot be waved away the same way. The document only became public because it was leaked; the Taliban never announced it. RSF notes the code does not mention journalists specifically, but it offers them no exemption either, meaning ordinary reporting on Taliban governance now falls under the same provisions that criminalize insulting the leadership. A separate article requires citizens to report any contact with government opponents, extending the incentive to inform beyond state security services into the population at large. Legal researchers reviewing the code have also flagged provisions dividing defendants into social categories, with punishment calibrated to status rather than offense, a structure that undercuts equal treatment under law well beyond the press freedom question alone.

The scale of the resulting collapse is difficult to overstate. RSF’s country data shows forty three percent of Afghan outlets disappeared within three months of the takeover, more than two thirds of the roughly twelve thousand journalists working in the country in 2021 have left the profession, and eight in ten women journalists have stopped working entirely. Behind each of those figures sits a newsroom that no longer exists or a byline that no longer appears, the practical result of a five year campaign that RSF’s South Asia desk head has described as turning criticism itself into a legal offense.

None of this makes Afghanistan an isolated case, which is what gives the story weight beyond South Asia. RSF’s own 2026 index places Afghanistan’s collapse inside a broader global pattern: more than half the world’s countries now rate as difficult or very serious environments for journalism, the worst showing the index has recorded in a quarter century. The organization has also pointed to a specific mechanism spreading well beyond authoritarian states, in which national security and counterterrorism justifications, first normalized after the September 11 attacks, are increasingly invoked to restrict reporting on matters of public interest, a pattern RSF says now appears in established democracies as well as in regimes like Afghanistan’s. Afghanistan represents the extreme endpoint of that continuum rather than an exception to it, which is precisely why treating it as a uniquely Afghan problem understates the lesson.

The crackdown has also produced a measurable outflow with consequences well beyond Afghanistan’s borders. RSF data shows the number of countries journalists have been forced to flee from worldwide has doubled over five years, from nineteen to forty, with Afghanistan topping the list. Those journalists do not disappear once they cross a border. Pakistan and Iran, the two most common host states, have each carried out mass deportations of Afghan refugees through 2026, and independent reporting from RSF and Human Rights Watch has documented Afghan journalists, including some holding valid visas, among those detained and forcibly returned toward the same authorities they fled. Resettlement pipelines to Europe and North America have slowed at the same time, leaving exiled journalists in prolonged legal limbo in third countries with limited protection. For policymakers well outside the region, that combination turns a domestic censorship story into a live test of asylum and non return commitments.

Three Paths From Here

The most likely trajectory is continued institutionalization rather than reversal. The Taliban leadership has shown no interest in press freedom as a bargaining chip for international recognition, and the shift from verbal directive to codified criminal law suggests an intent to make current restrictions permanent rather than negotiable. This path is highly likely through the remainder of 2026 and into 2027, with enforcement of the new code expanding province by province and further directives layered on top of an already dense regulatory web.

A second, less likely path involves narrow, tactical loosening tied to international engagement. If the Taliban pursues formal recognition or unlocked aid financing, cosmetic concessions on foreign broadcasters or select outlets are possible, mirroring past patterns of selective accommodation when the leadership has wanted to project moderation to specific foreign audiences. This outcome is possible but not likely to alter the underlying legal architecture, since Akhundzada’s own framing of criticism as a religious offense forecloses any structural reform led from within the leadership itself.

A third path, already underway, is a deepening exile crisis that draws in host and resettlement states more directly than the domestic censorship story alone ever could. Continued deportations from Pakistan and Iran, combined with stalled resettlement processing in Europe and North America, raise the probability of a high profile forced return case drawing sustained international attention, potentially forcing governments to clarify protection commitments to Afghan media workers in ways they have so far avoided through case by case handling. This path is likely to intensify over the next twelve months regardless of what happens inside Afghanistan itself, since it depends as much on Pakistani and Iranian deportation policy as on any Taliban decision.

Why a Domestic Censorship Story Is Not a Domestic Story

Afghanistan’s press freedom collapse will keep being read as an isolated horror story unless it is placed against the trend line RSF itself is now drawing, in which national security framing, once confined to the world’s most repressive states, is migrating into ordinary governance practice elsewhere. The clearest near term indicator to track is enforcement, not legislation. The Code of Criminal Procedure has existed on paper since January 2026 without a confirmed public prosecution under its press relevant articles. The first documented case brought under Article 19 or Article 23 against a journalist or commentator will mark the moment Taliban media law moves from threat to precedent, and from precedent to template.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Leavitt is departing her role to spend more time with family after giving birth to her second child, according to Trump.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will be departing her role at the end of the month to prioritise her family, United States President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social.

“Karoline has been a real leader in the White House, and has done a phenomenal job fighting for Justice, Liberty, and Freedom, since 2018,” Trump wrote in a post on Wednesday, revealing the staffing shake-up.

He noted that Leavitt would remain one of his “top outside advisors” and an “influential voice within the Republican Party”.

Leavitt is the latest in a series of senior Trump officials to step down from his second administration.

Since the start of this year, high-level figures like former Attorney General Pam Bondi and ex-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have been fired.

Other officials — including former Secretary of Labour Lori Michelle Chavez-DeRemer and Todd Lyon, acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — have resigned amid scrutiny over their leadership.

Leavitt’s departure, however, comes on the heels of her maternity leave. She and her spouse Nicholas Riccio gave birth to their second child, a baby girl named Viviana, in early May.

The 27-year-old stepped away from her duties as White House press secretary in late April. She returned to the White House podium for her first formal press briefing in mid-July.

“Karoline has been one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office”, Trump said in his post.

He added that Leavitt would continue to serve his administration as the Republican Party seeks to “conclusively win the Midterm Elections” in November.

This is a developing story. More details to come.

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role, will leave at month’s end, President Trump announced Wednesday.

Leavitt, 28, just recently returned to the White House after taking a brief leave for the birth of her second child in May.

Leavitt, who served Trump as a press aide during his first go-around in the White House, has been one of the most visible advocates of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. The Republican president described her as one of his “most trusted aides” in a social media post announcing her departure.

He said Leavitt “will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect! Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisers, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections.”

Leavitt recently returned to work after taking leave following the birth of her second child, a daughter, in May. She also has a two-year-old son.

“The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life,” Leavitt said in a social media post.

Trump did not outline plans for who might replace her in the high-profile role.

Aug. 7 (Asia Today) — Four Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee have asked South Korea’s media regulator for a briefing on how it plans to enforce the country’s revised Information and Communications Network Act, arguing the law could infringe on the constitutional rights of U.S. companies and users and be used to suppress politically disfavored views.

The lawmakers said the revised law, which took effect July 7, could expose U.S. companies such as YouTube and their users to penalties without sufficiently clear standards for determining what constitutes false information.

The request follows a House Judiciary Committee subpoena issued to Coupang in February and a July report in which the Republican-led committee accused the South Korean government of discriminating against U.S.-owned businesses.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio and Reps. Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, Darrell Issa of California and Michael Baumgartner of Washington sent a letter to the Korea Media and Communications Commission seeking details about its enforcement plans. Jordan made the letter public on X.

The lawmakers described the revised law as a significant threat to online speech and expression. They argued that the commission could take action against American companies and users for exercising rights protected under the U.S. Constitution.

Their concerns center on the scope of the law and the standards that will be used to enforce it.

The legislation passed South Korea’s National Assembly on Dec. 24 and took effect July 7. Under the revised law, certain media outlets and content publishers with at least 100,000 subscribers can face punitive damages for knowingly distributing false or manipulated information. Repeat violations covered by separate provisions can result in administrative penalties of up to 1 billion won, or about $705,000.

The Korea Media and Communications Commission has said the law is intended to protect people from harm caused by illegal, false and manipulated information.

The Republican lawmakers, however, argued that the law does not provide sufficiently clear standards for determining false information or explain in enough detail how those standards will be enforced.

They warned that vague provisions could be used against “politically disfavored opinions” and could have a chilling effect on online expression.

“No foreign government should be able to pressure American companies to censor constitutionally protected speech,” Fitzgerald said, describing South Korea’s law as “vague, expansive, and ripe for abuse.”

The Judiciary Committee also argued that the law could affect U.S.-based platform operators such as Google’s YouTube and their users.

The lawmakers said South Korea is following the path of the European Union’s Digital Services Act. The House Judiciary Committee has previously issued reports arguing that European digital regulation can restrict free expression by Americans and hinder innovation by U.S. companies.

The committee has been examining whether foreign digital regulations pressure U.S. technology companies to moderate speech or create barriers to American innovation.

The U.S. State Department has also raised concerns since the legislation passed the National Assembly in December, warning that the measure could create unnecessary barriers to digital services.

The latest congressional action comes as scrutiny of South Korean regulation of U.S.-owned businesses has intensified.

Jordan and Fitzgerald issued a subpoena Feb. 5 to Harold Rogers, Coupang’s chief administrative officer and general counsel, seeking communications between the company and the South Korean government as well as testimony before the committee.

The committee said it was investigating whether South Korean laws, regulations and judicial orders discriminate against U.S. companies or infringe on Americans’ due process rights.

Republican committee members cited a Nov. 13, 2025, joint fact sheet issued after a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.

They said the agreement committed South Korea to ensuring U.S. companies are not treated discriminatorily or subjected to unnecessary barriers in digital services, including regulations governing online platforms.

The lawmakers have argued that South Korea’s investigation of Coupang and the possibility of criminal penalties against American executives could conflict with that commitment.

According to the Judiciary Committee, South Korean authorities assigned about 400 investigators from 11 agencies to the Coupang customer information case.

The committee said the investigation involved about 150 face-to-face meetings, 200 interviews and more than 1,100 requests for documents and other materials.

It also said a former employee had retained limited, non-sensitive information involving about 3,000 customers and that the information was later recovered. The committee said Coupang had also agreed to compensate users.

In a footnote to its subpoena letter, the committee cited a report that Coupang had announced a compensation package valued at $1.18 billion.

The Judiciary Committee followed the February subpoena with an interim report July 1 accusing the South Korean government of discriminatory treatment of Coupang and other American-owned companies and of violating commitments made between the two countries.

Fitzgerald said Congress would continue examining what he characterized as efforts by foreign governments to export censorship and interfere with Americans’ First Amendment rights.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260807010002272

Artificial intelligence music company Suno is going retro — eventually.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based AI company has announced Suno Vinyl, a service that will press users’ generated AI tracks onto vinyl records. It has not gone live. The company has started a waiting list, with the first pressing reserved for users who sign up. A Suno spokesperson said the company is exploring ways for people to turn their music into physical artifacts.

“Press a banger, because it’s too good to live on a screen,” Suno wrote on its website.

Users will be able to build a tracklist of up to 46 minutes from their Suno library, then either upload their own album artwork or generate it on the platform for the sleeve, labels and cover. Each record will be a 12-inch pressing made from PETG, a type of plastic. Pricing is estimated about $45 plus shipping. Suno has not said who will press the records.

Vinyl records have seen a major resurgence ever since millennials brought the format back into mainstream culture in the 2010s. Over the years, it’s become customary for major musicians to release several vinyl variants to help promote their latest album. Olivia Rodrigo most recently released roughly 10 variants of her new album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” in June.

Last year, vinyl record purchases accounted for more than $1 billion in U.S. sales, up more than 9%, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America’s annual report. It was the first time vinyl revenue topped $1 billion since 1983.

The format sold 46.8 million units, against 29.5 million CDs in 2025.

Suno, founded in 2022, has established itself as a leader in AI music tech and maintains an office in Venice. In February, the company said it had surpassed 2 million paid subscribers and was on pace for $300 million in annual revenue. In June, raised more than $400 million in a Series D round led by Bond Capital, more than doubling its valuation to $5.4 billion from $2.45 billion less than a year earlier.

The growth has unfolded as the company fights on several legal fronts. Suno and its competitor Udio were sued for copyright infringement in 2024 by the RIAA on behalf of the industry’s biggest labels, including Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.

WMG was the first of the three to settle with Suno, reaching a deal last November that included a licensing agreement, Suno’s first partnership with a major label, and the sale of Warner’s Songkick concert platform to Suno.

The UMG and Sony litigation is ongoing, with a fair use hearing set for Massachusetts federal court and the labels seeking to expand their complaint. Suno also lost a case brought by German collecting society GEMA last week and is defending against legal actions from Denmark’s Koda.

Separately, class action suits against Suno and Udio have drawn support from more than 1,800 independent artists who say their recordings were used without permission to train the company’s models.

Suno has not said whether users will be able to press tracks that resemble copyrighted work, what rights users hold in the records they order, or whether the company takes a cut.

As AI creeps further into the music industry, copyright remains the sticking point — now on a format that fans seek precisely because a person made it.

Media freedom organisations and opposition lawmakers have criticised sweeping media reforms pushed through by Israel’s right-wing coalition as part of a legislative blitz before the parliament’s dissolution in advance of elections later this year.

The parliament, or Knesset, last week approved the bill that could give the government a far greater say in Israel’s news and broadcast sectors. The controversial measure strips away traditional oversight safeguards, eliminates requirements for minimum journalism standards and lifts longstanding limits on cross-ownership, among others.

Following the July 17 vote, watchdog groups, including the Union of Journalists in Israel, along with opposition parties, successfully petitioned the High Court of Justice to freeze parts of the legislation. They warned that some provisions that were set to take effect immediately, including the removal of limits on ownership of multiple media outlets and the stripping away of newsroom standards, could permanently distort the media landscape before the October 27 election, potentially influencing its outcome.

The government has until Sunday to respond, after which the court will decide whether to keep the freeze, widen it, or allow the provisions to take effect. Other, less contentious and immediate sections of the law were left to stand.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not vote on the measure. He is currently bound by a 2020 conflict-of-interest agreement that bars him from participating in government decisions that could affect his ongoing corruption trial, where, among other charges, he stands accused of using his position to unduly influence media coverage of his administration.

Nevertheless, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi thanked Netanyahu directly, saying: “Mr prime minister, I want to thank you and tell you that the mission you gave me four years ago – to deliver right-wing reform of the media – was today successfully completed.”

Israeli media reported that such a directive by Netanyahu could be a violation of his agreement. Neither the Prime Minister’s Office nor the Communications Ministry responded to Al Jazeera’s queries over whether Netanyahu’s role in the legislation’s passage represented a conflict of interest. However, Karhi subsequently claimed that he had secured a legal opinion determining that the prime minister was not in breach of the conflict-of-interest agreement.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi have proven repeatedly that they are enemies of independent journalism in Israel,” Martin Roux, of the Reporters Without Borders media monitor, told Al Jazeera.

“This means they’re attacking every Israeli citizen’s right to reliable information from diverse sources. This has been true for years, and it is becoming more obvious every day as the legislative elections, set for the end of October, approach. It’s all about controlling the narrative,” he said.

In a social media post, Karhi claimed the new legislation would bring “more right-wing coverage and less regulation”.

“After a determined struggle against every possible element from the deep state, tycoons, attorneys, officials and fearmongering networks – we managed to pass the right-wing media reform.”

‘Boosting propaganda channels’

However, for many observers, there was little new in overhauling media that had grown used to toeing the government line, with critical coverage of the multiple wars that Israel has engaged in and the international outrage that many have caused typically relegated to the sidelines of the national conversation.

“The reforms are part of Netanyahu’s ongoing media overhaul – undermining the remains of critical reporting and journalistic independence in the country, while boosting Netanyahu’s propaganda channels,” London-based Israeli academic and media analyst Ayala Panievsky told Al Jazeera.

She cited the far-right Channel 14, which she said emboldened Israel’s war crimes and offered unflagging support to what she described as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.

“In 2020, they amplified ‘the Big Lie’ in the US elections, claiming Trump won the election – they might therefore act similarly following the Israeli general elections in October, if Netanyahu’s coalition indeed loses,” said Panievsky, echoing similar concerns among academics and legal analysts sparked by accusations from lawmakers within Netanyahu’s Likud party that the acting head of the Central Elections Committee, Dean Livne, was “clearly politically biased”.

Analysts and observers from across Israel have long pointed to the strongly nationalist undertone of much of Israel’s current affairs coverage and the absence of space given to Palestinians and Palestinian suffering.

When the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, Israel’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the findings as “distorted and false“, a framing echoed across domestic outlets rather than scrutinised.

A subsequent Molad report found only 3 percent of Channel 12’s early war coverage referenced Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, with just two of 206 visuals showing Palestinian civilian casualties. Elsewhere, allegations of Israeli war crimes, including sexual abuse, are either omitted or given pro-government framing, observers told Al Jazeera.

“The Israeli media just doesn’t feature Gaza. It’s not there,” political analyst Ori Goldberg said from outside Tel Aviv. “There’s no sense of solidarity with the journalists killed there, or those they don’t let in. They’re just not mentioned.”

Similarly, discussion panels on the various wars that the Netanyahu administration had embarked upon were typically staffed by ex-generals, who had no question with the need for war, only differences over its prosecution, said Goldberg.

However, even this relative compliance was not enough for a prime minister fighting an election that had come to rely on the appearance of forward momentum and paper enemies to sustain his political project.

“Netanyahu always needs to be seen to be pushing the envelope,” Goldberg added. “He needs a media that will give barely critical coverage of his every word, but one that he can still present as the enemy within.”

United States President Donald Trump returned to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, three months after a gunman upended the event.

“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” Trump said at the start of his speech on Friday, after a lengthy awards ceremony, during which several journalists, including CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, spoke.

The annual – and perennially controversial – event had originally been held in April, but it was swiftly derailed after a gunman attempted to storm the proceedings in an alleged effort to assassinate Trump.

“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better and the third time will be better yet,” Trump quipped, before raising his hands at the crowd and saying, “I’m only kidding.”

The US president is limited to two terms by the Constitution, but Trump has been facetiously floating the idea of running for a third time.

The rescheduled dinner took place in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, with a guest list of 700 people, much smaller compared with April’s botched gathering.

“It was an assault on our democracy itself; it was a very serious situation,” Trump said of the alleged assassination attempt.

He lauded some of his aides, including Pete Hegseth, Steve Miller and Tom Holman, for showing “bravery” during the incident.

“They were standing on tables, when most of you were under the tables,” he said.

Alleged gunman Cole Tomas Allen had stormed a security gate at the gala venue, the Washington Hilton, armed with guns and knives. He was accused by prosecutors of shooting and injuring a Secret Service officer before he was stopped.

Allen is facing federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president.

“Many people yelled, ‘Get down. Get down,’ which caused Nicki Minaj to start twerking,” Trump said on Friday.

As journalists in attendance forced a muted laugh, Trump added: “She’s the only one who knew what that meant.”

Trump later used the event to rebuke political opponents, presenting his attacks as jokes. He called Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom “newscum”, questioned Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s intelligence, and pretended that someone in the audience was calling Illinois Governor JB Pritzker a “fat pig” to appear that he was not uttering the insult himself.

The US president also called top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer “Palestinian” as an insult.

Earlier in the evening, Trump entered the ballroom to polite applause.

“This is the largest gathering of people with Trump derangement syndrome,” he said, referring to journalists.

The US president has had a historically caustic relationship with the dinner, but this year, he touted the celebration this year, calling it a “very good thing” and a “HOT ticket”.

White House Correspondents’ Association president Weijia Jiang of CBS News, which was acquired by pro-Israel investor David Ellison last year, thanked Trump for his support, and for showing up for the second time in three months.

“Tonight our message is this: We are back,” she said. “We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.”

Trump’s enthused attendance represented a sea change from his first term, beginning in 2017, when the newly elected president declared the soiree “dead” and declined to attend over the next four years.

Beyond Trump, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has long been a lightning rod for criticism among media professionals, with some journalists arguing that reporters should not be chummy with the politicians they cover. Calls for the dinner to be abandoned entirely only grew after the April incident.

WASHINGTON — For the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner on Friday at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, security will be much tighter, the guest list smaller, the partying pared down, and the dress code more relaxed.

That much, the correspondents’ association can control.

What remains out of its control — and perhaps the biggest question — is what the dinner’s most prominent guest, President Trump, will bring to the table.

Call it White House Dinner 2.0, or Take Two, or, in Trump’s own words, a “HOT ticket.” The big unknown is whether Trump will bring the fighting words (“rather nasty,” he said) against the press that he’d planned to deliver in April — before the event descended into chaos when a gunman stormed a security checkpoint, forcing an evacuation of the room.

“The president looks forward to finishing what he started,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday, confirming Trump’s attendance. “I encourage everyone watching tomorrow night to tune in for what promises to be a very entertaining and memorable evening.”

Trump has been coy about what he might say

As for Trump himself, he indicated last month he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out,” the Republican president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “In any event, it will be a ‘HOT’ ticket!”

Besides the pared-down approach, there is another change at Friday’s dinner: two additional awards. One will be presented to Victor Gonzales, the Secret Service agent who was staffing a security checkpoint in April and was struck in his protective vest.

“Officer Gonzales … ran toward danger so that thousands of others could make it home safely,” WHCA President Weijia Jiang said in a statement. “His courage stemmed from a dedication to service, which we are looking forward to honoring this week.”

A second award will be presented to the staff of the Washington Hilton hotel, site of the first dinner.

Other changes: With security in mind, there will be only one entrance at the much smaller venue, with airport-style metal detectors. Guests received individual QR entry codes in advance, and nobody can get in unless recognized. “There is NO red carpet at this dinner,” said a memo Jiang sent to some guests last month, seen by The Associated Press. “There are NO onsite pre-dinner receptions.”

The dress code this time is a looser “black tie optional,” and dinner includes grilled peach and burrata salad, lobster, and beef Wellington. The evening, as at the last dinner, has entertainment by mentalist Oz Pearlman, along with the awards presentations and Trump’s remarks.

Jiang and her fellow board members worked hard to bring about this WHCA dinner 2.0, not wanting to let a violent act — or the image of colleagues hiding under tables — remain the final thought. Announcing the rescheduling, she emphasized the dinner’s stated purpose: “a celebration of a free press and the vital role of journalism in our democracy for over a century.”

“We will not allow an act of violence to have the last word, especially during a year when we are reflecting on the 250th anniversary of America and everything we stand for,” Jiang said.

There’s still lots of criticism of the event

But it’s also clear that some people felt the dinner should not be rescheduled at all.

Many never thought it was much of a good look in the first place, with the sight of journalists in formal wear cozying up to their sources, or the objects of their reporting.

“It undermines the public faith in how the press does its work, and it makes it look like we are pals with the people we cover,” Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said when the deliberations were taking place.

The new dinner comes during a time of fast-increasing tension between the media and a president who, in his second term, has tried to exert pressure on media outlets he is unhappy with in a variety of ways. That pressure has ranged from sanctions against members of the White House press corps to regulatory actions through the Federal Communications Commission to outright lawsuits.

Those tensions have only escalated since April, with the latest example reaching a New York courtroom on Thursday. There, criticized by a federal judge for sloppy legal work, the government withdrew subpoenas that would have compelled three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for articles about Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet.

That escalation was the impetus behind a letter from a coalition of press freedom groups and hundreds of former journalists, urging the WHCA to stand up to Trump forcefully at the dinner.

“We believe it is hypocritical to celebrate the First Amendment in front of the man who relentlessly attacks it,” the letter says. “We urge the WHCA to condemn the administration’s actions from the podium and pledge to fight all attempts by his administration to undermine this core pillar of a functioning democracy.”

Noveck writes for the Associated Press.

Mayor Karen Bass’ press relations office communicates through WhatsApp messages that auto-delete every 24 hours, potentially shielding the messages from public records requests, according to three sources familiar with the office.

The press office is under scrutiny over its use of an unpaid consultant as a spokesperson for the first half of the year. Just weeks after the consultant, Yusef Robb, ceased working as a spokesperson for the city, he took a job doing crisis communications for Lineage, whose cold food storage facility in Boyle Heights caught fire last month, spreading smoke and foul odors. Robb continued to work for Bass as an informal advisor until The Times and other outlets reported his dual roles.

Even though he was no longer a spokesperson, Robb remained in several WhatsApp group channels with mayoral press staffers, all set to auto-delete, until at least a week after he started working for Lineage, said two sources, who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. L.A. Material first reported Robb’s presence in the channels.

The Times has filed a public records request for all messages that Robb received or sent to the mayor or her press office between June 1 and July 10, including WhatsApp messages. The city administrative code requires records to be retained for at least two years.

The Bass administration declined to comment on the press office’s use of disappearing messages on WhatsApp.

Bass herself has also communicated through disappearing messages.

In response to a public records request from The Times for Bass’ texts in the aftermath of the January 2025 Palisades fire, her office initially declined to turn over any messages. City lawyer David Michaelson told The Times that “texts are ephemeral types of electronic communication” that aren’t subject to the city record retention requirement.

He also said Bass’ phone was “set not to save text messages.”

The city ultimately recovered more than 100 messages to and from Bass during that period and released them to The Times.

The Times still sued the city, alleging that it unlawfully withheld and deleted the mayor’s text messages and other public records from the catastrophic wildfire.

“Their contention is they don’t have to retain them, and our contention is they do,” said Kelly Aviles, outside counsel for The Times in the lawsuit, in an interview Thursday.

In a court filing, attorneys representing the city argued that keeping work-related messages for up to two years was “absurdly impractical.”

“The Times’ proposed rule requires a degree of intrusion into City employees’ personal sphere that is, at the very least, offensive if not violative of California and federal constitutional rights,” wrote Reuben Camper Cahn, an attorney for the city.

In the past, some city employees communicated with each other each other through Google Chat messages that auto-deleted after a day.

In January 2025, the city stopped that practice and required that Google Chats be saved “indefinitely.”

Retention of messages has also been an issue in the federal government, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio setting some of his Signal chats to auto-delete.

July 13 (UPI) — Pete Hegseth, secretary of the U.S. Defense Department, announced Monday that the Pentagon will team up with the Justice Department to “identify and prosecute” those leaking information to the press.

In a video posted on social media, Hegseth said he has delegated tasking authority to the department’s office of general counsel, empowering it to “request and receive all information, records and support across the department concerning media leak investigations.”

“Leaked information risks lives; these new tools and processes will greatly assist us in protecting our joint force,” Hegseth said. He thanked acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for “his help in this important project.”

The task force announcement comes after the Trump administration issued subpoenas this weekend to New York Times journalists, demanding they testify in front of a federal grand jury “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” The Times reported last week, using anonymous sources, about security concerns involving President Donald Trump‘s new Air Force One, which was donated by Qatar.

Representatives from the Times also said a senior FBI official contacted a reporter and senior editor before the story ran, wanting the article to be withheld and asking for the names of sources.

A top newsroom lawyer for the Times said the journalists report the facts and “advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used.”

“This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs,” lawyer David McCraw said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Covington said in response to the Times that reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

Earlier in 2026, the Justice Department also issued subpoenas to journalists at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. It withdrew them after the news organizations challenged the attempt. Federal agents also raided the home of a Washington Post reporter in January in connection with a government contractor’s handling of classified information.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice has subpoenaed New York Times journalists after they reported on security concerns involving the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One, marking a dramatic escalation of President Trump’s campaign against the media that has drawn condemnation for eroding a fundamental freedom of American democracy.

The new jet, a present from the U.S. ally on which the administration spent $400 million to retrofit and upgrade, entered service this month. But Trump used an older model Air Force One jet to leave a NATO summit in Turkey and later referenced threats against him made by Iran.

The subpoenas seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan next week, the New York Times said, adding that federal agents delivered some subpoenas to the reporters at their homes.

They were issued after FBI Director Kash Patel and other Justice Department officials met at the White House on Friday to talk about the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The journalists subpoenaed included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, the Times reported.

“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, said in a statement.

Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Trump’s “war on the press is looking for another victim.”

He said in a statement that the subpoenas “break from long-standing Justice Department practice to protect the public interest and press independence by requiring prosecutors to only seek information from reporters as a last resort when all other avenues have been exhausted.”

The department said that “to be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

Its statement said that “we value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but DOJ also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information, which means not sharing classified information.”

While recognizing “there may always be natural tension there,” the department said, “we are not going to ignore the law and stop investigating the people who work in the administration and think it’s OK to leak classified information impacting national security.”

Pattern of anti-press actions

Issuing subpoenas represents a further ramping up of Trump’s effort to threaten independent new organizations by leveraging the power of the federal government against them. It is also part of a systematic pattern by the Republican president to attempt to undermine press freedom in order to shield him from negative coverage.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department issued subpoenas seeking to compel testimony from reporters at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. In both cases, the department later withdrew the subpoenas.

In January, FBI agents searched the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, who has been covering Trump’s transformation of the federal government, as part of a leak investigation into a Pentagon contractor accused of taking home classified information.

Adam Steinbaugh, senior attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said Friday’s subpoenas and the prospect of “hauling reporters before grand juries sends a chilling message to journalists and whistleblowers alike: Watch what you say, or expect a knock on the door.”

“These tactics are becoming more common,” Steinbaugh said in a statement. “That doesn’t make them normal.”

During his first term, Trump suggested that the press constituted an “enemy” of the American people. Since returning to the White House, he has waged an aggressive campaign against the media unlike any in modern U.S. history.

Trump’s attacks against news outlets and media figures he believes are overly critical of him has included filing lawsuits against outlets whose coverage he dislikes, threatening to revoke TV broadcast licenses and seeking to bend news organizations and social media companies to his will.

The Justice Department over the years has developed and revised internal policies governing how it will respond to news media leaks.

Though the department across presidential administrations has periodically seized the phone records of individual journalists in hopes of identifying sources for national security stories, it is extremely rare for the government to attempt to compel reporters to reveal their sources before a grand jury.

In April 2025, then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi rescinded a Biden administration policy that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations — a practice long decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.

Doing so again gave prosecutors the authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.

A memo Bondi issued said members of the press are “presumptively entitled to advance notice of such investigative activities,” and subpoenas are to be “narrowly drawn.” Warrants must also include “protocols designed to limit the scope of intrusion into potentially protected materials or newsgathering activities,” the memo stated.

Security issues with new Air Force One

The president flew the new Air Force One to Turkey during this week’s visit. But he departed Wednesday on one of the older-model Air Force One jets for Mildenhall, a Royal Air Force base in Suffolk, England.

The newer plane also flew to Mildenhall. Trump then switched to that plane for the flight home to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

The abrupt swap came as a shaky ceasefire with Iran had collapsed, with the U.S. launching airstrikes on Iran and Tehran attacking three gulf Arab states. Iran and Turkey share a border, sparking speculation that the new jet lacked certain sophisticated security and countermeasure systems.

The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that the switch had come at the urging of the Secret Service, and that the newer plane lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities.

Trump denied any security concerns, posting on social media that the stop in Mildenhall was so that service members there could view the new jet. During the flight, Trump denied to the reporters accompanying him that security concerns involving Iran were a factor in flying two planes home.

Still, asked if he was aware of any credible threats against Air Force One by Iran, Trump responded, “I have a threat all the time. I’m No. 1 on their list.”

The White House did not answer messages seeking comment about the subpoenas of the Times journalists.

Weissert and Khalil write for the Associated Press. AP writers Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer, Michelle L. Price and Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday denied a request to disqualify top Justice Department officials from supervising the prosecution of the man charged with trying to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Cole Tomas Allen had argued that involvement in his prosecution by Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and District of Columbia U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro created a potential conflict of interest because they were among many administration officials present at the April dinner. Allen’s attorney also had raised concerns about the close friendship between Trump and Pirro, a former Fox News commentator.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden wrote in his ruling that neither their attendance at the dinner nor Pirro’s personal relationship with the president merited their disqualification. McFadden noted that Allen is not charged with attempting to harm Blanche and Pirro, and there is no evidence to suggest he even knew they would attend the dinner.

“They are unlikely to be trial witnesses, nor do they meet the legal definition of victims,” wrote McFadden, who was nominated to the bench by Trump.

Allen has been accused of trying to breach a security checkpoint armed with guns and knives. He has pleaded not guilty to various charges, including assaulting a federal official with a deadly weapon and attempted assassination of the president. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge alone.

Allen also is accused of firing a shotgun at a Secret Service agent during the attack, which disrupted and ultimately prompted an early end to one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital. The Secret Service officer who was shot once in a bullet-resistant vest fired his own weapon five times without hitting anyone. Allen, of Torrance, California, was injured but was not shot.

Richer writes for the Associated Press.

Hundreds marched in Tunisia’s capital demanding press freedom and the release of political prisoners detained during President Kais Saied’s crackdown on dissent, which has jailed opposition figures including Ennahda party leader Rached Ghannouchi.

Media freedom advocates condemn move as latest effort to curtail independent reporting on the US military.

The United States Department of Defense has barred journalists from its press office, the latest move by the Pentagon to restrict media access since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez said on Monday that the administration had re-designated the office as a “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility” due to its use by speechwriters with access to classified government information.

“These speechwriters routinely handle classified material and require SIPRNet access,” Valdez said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera, referring to the secure computer network used by the Pentagon to share classified information.

“As a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. Access to the office of the Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs and to the Press Secretary remains available by appointment only,” Valdez added, using the Trump administration’s preferred title for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Washington Post first reported the change.

The move follows a slew of steps by the Trump administration to curtail the ability of US media outlets to report on the military and other areas of the government.

In March, the Defense Department said it would no longer allow media outlets to maintain offices at the Pentagon after a judge sided with The New York Times in a lawsuit challenging the imposition of new rules for obtaining press credentials.

The Pentagon also announced that journalists would require an official escort while inside the complex, a policy that The New York Times is seeking to overturn in a separate lawsuit filed in May.

The National Press Club, the main professional organisation for journalists in the US, condemned the latest restrictions as a “troubling escalation” in the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail media scrutiny of the Pentagon.

“Independent reporting on the US military is not optional,” National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr said in a statement.

“When journalists are pushed farther from the institutions they cover, the American people are left with less information, less transparency, and less oversight. Any effort to restrict that access should alarm everyone who values a free and informed society.”

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organisation, also criticised the move.

“It’s rare for anything other than disingenuous spin and outright lies to come out of the Pentagon’s press office these days, so it’s hard to imagine what basis they have to call the space classified,” Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the organisation, told Al Jazeera.

“The only thing sensitive or confidential about the information released by Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is that it’s not true.”

Across South Asia, concerns over press freedom, political influence, and media credibility are drawing increasing international scrutiny. From Bangladesh and Pakistan to India, journalists and independent media organisations face mounting political, economic, and legal pressures that are reshaping how information is produced and consumed.

Recent international assessments point to what rights groups describe as a broader regional decline in media independence. The 2026 World Press Freedom Index placed multiple South Asian countries near the lower end of global rankings, reflecting concerns over censorship, political pressure, and growing ideological polarisation within news ecosystems.

Among these cases, India continues to attract the most sustained global attention due to its scale, democratic profile, and influence as the world’s largest electoral democracy.

When a country that defines itself as a global democratic model falls to 157th out of 180 nations on the World Press Freedom Index, the question is no longer whether there are challenges within its media environment. The question is how deeply those challenges have reshaped journalism itself.

Together with other regional indicators, the findings suggest not isolated failures but a structural transformation in how media systems operate across South Asia.

The concerns highlighted in global reports do not exist in isolation. Across South Asia, governments and political actors are increasingly accused of exerting pressure on journalists through legal action, advertising influence, regulatory scrutiny, and informal intimidation.

According to World Press Freedom Index in 2026, Bangladesh stood at 152nd. Afghanistan remained among the lowest-ranked countries globally, reflecting ongoing restrictions on press activity. Nepal, while comparatively better positioned at 87th, has also faced periodic concerns over political influence and media ownership concentration.

Analysts argue that while each country’s political context differs, a shared pattern is emerging: fragile media economies, heightened political polarisation, and increasing hostility toward independent journalism.

However, India’s trajectory is often singled out due to its democratic stature and its role as a regional political and cultural benchmark. This contrast between democratic identity and media freedom rankings has intensified global debate about the state of its information ecosystem.

Political Influence and the Changing Nature of News

Within India, one of the central concerns raised by international observers is the perceived growth of political influence over large sections of mainstream media.

A detailed report by Genocide Watch described what it termed a “severe crisis of credibility” in parts of the Indian media landscape, arguing that dominant narratives in some outlets increasingly align with those of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party rather than independently scrutinising power.

This does not imply uniformity across the entire media sector. India still has a diverse ecosystem of investigative journalists, regional newspapers, and independent digital platforms producing critical reporting. However, critics argue that the dominant tone of mainstream television and high-visibility digital media increasingly reflects political messaging rather than adversarial journalism.

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) assessment echoed concerns about structural vulnerabilities. It highlighted the heavy dependence of Indian media on advertising revenue, including significant spending by both central and state governments. Critics argue that this financial structure creates subtle incentives for compliance, where editorial decisions may be influenced not through direct censorship, but through economic dependency.

In such an environment, formal restrictions are often unnecessary. Editorial caution can emerge internally, as news organisations weigh political and financial risks before pursuing certain stories.

The Rise of Divisive Television Narratives

Another recurring concern involves the increasing polarisation of televised political discourse.

Genocide Watch and other rights-focused assessments have warned that sections of mainstream media increasingly frame political and social issues through identity-based narratives, often centred on religion and nationalism. Complex policy debates are frequently simplified into binary positions, contributing to heightened social tension.

Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2026, also documented concerns that hostile rhetoric in parts of media and online spaces has coincided with rising incidents of discrimination and attacks against minority communities, including Muslims in different parts of the country.

While causation is difficult to establish definitively, observers argue that repeated framing of communities through suspicion or collective identity can contribute to an environment where social hostility becomes easier to normalise.

The RSF report additionally pointed to structural imbalances within media representation, noting concerns about concentration of leadership within certain social groups and the underrepresentation of women in prominent political debate programming. These imbalances, critics argue, shape not only who speaks in media spaces, but also which perspectives are amplified or marginalised.

Self-Censorship and Invisible Constraints

Not all constraints on journalism are explicit. In many cases, they manifest as self-censorship.

According to Genocide Watch, journalists and editors increasingly avoid topics that could lead to political backlash, regulatory scrutiny, legal threats, or coordinated online harassment campaigns. Over time, this produces a newsroom culture in which certain subjects are quietly excluded before formal editorial decisions are even made.

This form of pressure is difficult to measure, but its effects can be significant. When reporters internalise risk calculations, the range of publicly available information can narrow without any formal ban or directive.

RSF similarly highlighted concerns over actions taken against independent journalists, commentators, and publications. It cited instances of restrictions, legal pressure, and bans on certain media outlets in sensitive regions, including Jammu and Kashmir, where authorities have taken action against publications accused of promoting separatism.

Critics argue that such measures contribute to a wider climate of caution, particularly around politically sensitive reporting.

A Broader Democratic Stress Test

The implications of these developments extend beyond journalism alone.

Genocide Watch framed the weakening of press freedom as part of a broader institutional credibility challenge linked to political polarisation and majoritarian dynamics. In this view, media independence is not an isolated issue but part of a wider ecosystem that includes accountability, governance, and civic trust.

A free press plays a central role in democratic systems by enabling scrutiny of power and facilitating informed public debate. When that role weakens, the consequences extend into how citizens engage with institutions and interpret political realities.

India’s trajectory in the RSF index over recent years reflects this concern. The country ranked 150th in 2022, fell further to 161st in 2023, improved slightly to 151st in 2025, and then declined again to 157th in 2026. Analysts interpret this pattern not as random fluctuation but as part of a longer-term structural challenge.

At the same time, government supporters argue that India remains a robust electoral democracy with active institutions, a vibrant political opposition, and a highly diverse media landscape. They contend that international rankings often fail to capture the complexity of India’s scale, security challenges, and internal diversity.

The debate, therefore, is not solely about classification, but about how democratic quality itself should be assessed.

South Asia in a Global Decline

These concerns are unfolding within a broader global downturn in press freedom. RSF’s 2026 index noted that worldwide media freedom has reached its weakest level in 25 years, with more than half of all countries classified as having “difficult” or “very serious” conditions.

South Asia reflects this global trend particularly sharply. Alongside India, countries such as Bangladesh remain in the lower tiers of the global rankings, highlighting shared regional challenges around political influence, media ownership concentration, and journalist safety.

Yet despite this broader pattern, analysts continue to emphasise that each country’s trajectory is shaped by its own political history and institutional structures. In India’s case, its global influence and democratic identity make developments in its media landscape particularly consequential for international observers.

What Is Ultimately at Stake

The credibility of media systems plays a central role in shaping the health of democratic life. Journalism informs not only public debate but also citizens’ ability to evaluate leadership, understand policy decisions, and hold institutions accountable.

When trust in media declines, democratic accountability becomes harder to sustain.

The findings from Genocide Watch and RSF should therefore be viewed not simply as criticism of individual outlets or governments, but as indicators of broader institutional stress across South Asia.

Addressing these challenges would require a combination of stronger protections for editorial independence, more diversified ownership structures, reduced reliance on state advertising, and greater safeguards for journalists facing intimidation or harassment.

Despite these pressures, the region continues to produce significant investigative journalism and independent reporting under difficult conditions. Many journalists continue to work at considerable personal and professional risk to maintain public access to information.

Acknowledging structural challenges across South Asia is not an indictment of any single democracy. Rather, it is increasingly seen by analysts as a necessary step toward strengthening the democratic principles that the region’s constitutions and institutions claim to uphold.

With information from Reuters.