Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/democracy/page/3/)
Attendees to GIJC21’s plenary session were asked three questions about the challenges to democracy in their countries, and the role of journalism in upholding or weakening democratic values and institutions. The poll results reflect the threats faced by reporters around the world, from disinformation, fake news, and extremism.
Tracking the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter from September 13 to September 19, using NodeXL mapping and our own human curation, we found projects by Reuters and the German newspaper Morgenpost analyzing Merkel’s legacy in numbers. In this edition, we also feature a story looking into North and South Korea’s missile programs, a piece on school segregation in the United States, and more worrying climate change revelations.
Authoritarianism is on the rise around the world, from failing democracies to despotic regimes. In this global GIJN webinar, we bring together four extraordinary journalists from Russia, Egypt, South Africa, and the Philippines to share strategies for staying effective and true to the journalism profession’s highest standards.
Since 1998, El Faro has fought for accountability in El Salvador, a Central American country saddled with stubborn poverty, a history of civil conflict, and pervasive criminal gangs. But after decades of investigating criminal organizations, corruption, and illegal practices by security forces, the newspaper might be facing one of its greatest challenges yet.
Researchers have found evidence that attacks on press freedom — such as jailing journalists, raiding their homes, shutting down printing presses, and using libel laws to thwart reporters — have measurable effects on a nation’s economic growth.
A recent report published by the Forum on Information & Democracy’s Working Group on the Sustainability of Journalism says the journalism industry is experiencing a “potential extinction event” as the certainties (chiefly the advertising-supported model) under which journalism operated for 40 to 50 years continues to fall away.
In August 2020, the leaders of Thailand’s pro-democracy movement published a list of demands after tens of thousands of reformists joined their call to take to the streets. Only one local media outlet dared to publish them: Prachatai, a bold start-up committed to promoting freedom of expression and democracy.
Freedom House, which released its annual report Freedom in the World this week, has documented the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom, finding less than a fifth of the world’s population living in what it considers “free” countries.
Secularism in the world’s largest democracy is threatened by a Hindu-nationalist movement that takes pages from the playbooks of authoritarian leaders around the world. In this longread, journalist Maddy Crowell shares the first-hand story of one New Delhi-based magazine that is trying to protect democracy in India when other news outlets fail to hold power to account.
What does it mean to pursue independent journalism in an environment of democratic retrenchment? Nic Dawes, a former editor at South Africa’s Mail & Guardian and India’s Hindustan Times, reflects on the role of the media in holding power to account as the US election draws close.