A free media is a central pillar of democracy.  Journalists and opinion leaders perform the vital work of holding truth to power and guarding human rights globally, by keeping the public informed and shedding light on injustice.  Every day, journalists - and those who defend them - face immense risks to their safety, and the safety of their families, on account of their profession.

Press freedom is under sustained pressure all over the world, driven by legal threats, physical attacks, intimidation, attempts of media capture, and transnational repression.  In several countries, public service media were subject to political interference, restrictive legislation, and insufficient funding.  Abusive lawsuits, known as strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), continued to be used widely to silence the media.

An annual report of the Council of Europe also expresses concern about the reported digital surveillance of journalists via spyware, "foreign agent" legislation adopted or planned in several countries, and the precarious working conditions of media workers in many countries.

Years 2024 and 2025 marked some of the deadliest periods on record for media professionals, with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documenting 129 deaths globally in 2025 alone.  The Middle East   ̶   specifically the war in Gaza and regional escalations   ̶   accounted for the large majority of deaths. Other dangerous active conflicts include Ukraine and Sudan.  Over the past decade, there have been 584 killings of media workers. This number included Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination in Malta.

Nearly 200 journalists have been killed over a five-year span outside major wars, frequently targeted for investigating political corruption, organised crime, and environmental destruction in countries like Mexico, Ecuador, India, and the Philippines.  Moreover, the systematic use of deprivation of liberty as a tool of media control is widespread.  As of 31 December 2025, 148 journalists were held in detention across Europe.

The Council of Europe´s "New Democratic Pact for Europe" has appealed to governments to place media freedom, media pluralism, and journalist safety at the core of democratic resilience, and to put in place safeguards against disinformation and media capture. It is an uphill struggle, as in 2025, fewer than one-third of alerts issued by the Council's Safety of Journalists platform regarding threats to media freedom and the safety of journalists across Europe received a government reply.

Malta has recorded 72 press freedom violations since 2020, including 13 incidents in 2025, according to the latest Mapping Media Freedom report. Malta's alerts span intimidation, harassment, and systematic discrediting campaigns, frequently originating from government officials themselves.

Direct threats materialised on 16 June when SideStreet platform staff faced intimidation after a man entered their Lija offices demanding the removal of a post.

Online harassment has intensified through AI-generated content. In May last year, freelance journalist Julian Delia was the target of AI-generated images posted across multiple Facebook groups after exposing disinformation campaigns. The satirical cartoons depicted sexualised innuendos and suggested his journalism was for sale. Media freedom groups protested that the smear campaign overstepped democratic norms.

Regrettably, Malta remains a laggard in press freedom.  It falls short of international standards as the government continue to delay in implementing structural media reforms, failing to fully execute the public inquiry recommendations from the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and allowing a lingering climate of hostility toward independent media.

No amount of propaganda will negate the fact that Malta's proposed legislative updates and anti-SLAPP frameworks fail to properly align with European human rights obligations.  Little has changed since an independent public inquiry concluded that the State created an atmosphere of impunity.

Journalists trying to access public interest data continue to face persistent roadblocks, alongside restrictive state practices, and legal challenges against freedom of information requests.  Parliamentary Questions are purposely delayed or remain outright unanswered, while others provide skimpy information not worth the paper they are written on.  Major government decisions are buried under the 'not in the public intertest' label.

But what is even more worrying is that we are seeing increasing instances of journalists who are self-censoring their reporting because of growing concerns about their personal safety.  Hundreds of journalists from across the globe have anonymously disclosed that they are avoiding or altering coverage on certain topics due to intimidation, leading to self-censorship and "a narrowing of the public conversation."

"There have definitely been times where there's been a story that's maybe in the public interest, maybe worth reporting on, where we have had frank discussions about whether it's 'worth it'," one journalist told a government-backed investigation by Alma Economics in the UK recently.

The investigators were also told of that the increase in newsroom self-censoring cultures was inevitable given a polarised political environment. In particular, female journalists faced the brunt of abuse, describing gendered and sexualised harassment, explicit threats, inappropriate messages, and online comments focused on appearance.

Similar findings have been recorded in the US, where the International Women's Media Foundation found journalists were working in heightened political polarisation, declining public trust in the media, and increasing exposure to physical and psychological risks.

Common topics raised by journalists as causing safety concerns were right-wing anti-immigration organisations, the Trump administration, extreme religious groups, racist movements, as well as trans issues.

The risks to the established media have intensified, driven by declining public trust and narratives portraying the media as 'fake news.'  The rise of "citizen journalists" who have no journalistic training, lack professional checks, and struggle with bias, but have access to large online audiences, is having catastrophic effects. 

It is not a question of real journalists feeling superior, but today we have people like Ricky and Il-Wenz talking about economic issues as if they are PhDs from the London School of Economics and Political Science.  All sorts of government bodies lend them credibility by sending their spokesmen on the influencers' programmes and podcasts, where they can spew propaganda and even lie without facing hard questions.

Mind you, I shouldn't be too harsh with Ricky and Il-Wenz.   After all, before them we had Peppi Azzopardi's Xarabank.  Peppi himself could be quite a hard-hitter but giving a platform to illiterate and semi-illiterate people to talk about economics, politics, science, and theology was equally daft.  It only served to reinforce the passengers' ignorance in these matters.  But it was entertaining and a massive revenue-earner, and that's what counts in the modern-day media world. 

Nor should I forget my own personal experience of the threats to media freedom.  I too had quite a few occasions where I was subjected to intense pressure by vested interests.  Two of them involved Archbishop Michael Gonzi trying to stop me from talking about the Church's dated birth-control ideas, particularly when I criticised Pope Paul VI's encyclical "Humanae Vitae."  Another occasion was when the US Ambassador in Malta requested a meeting with GWU General Secretary and Union Press head Joe Attard Kingswell to pressure me into dropping my criticism of the American war in Vietnam. 

Needless to say, I didn't bend.  But in those days, assassination of journalists was not yet an accepted solution to unobliging members of the Press.  Who knows how I might have reacted had the Archbishop threatened me with excommunication or the CIA given me a warning?  Would my bravado have survived the challenges?  I hesitate to pass judgment on today's journalists when the circumstances have changed so drastically.

In fact, they have changed so much that self-censorship has become common, complementing most publishers' innate bias.   Nowadays, any serious media house carries out surveys of its target audience, who they are, what they are interested in, and what type of news to offer them. But more than that, the media house owners have an agenda which is as much political as it is commercial.

Many journalists are self-censoring around producing what the audience and the publisher want.   To some extent, a certain element of this is justifiable.  The media house cannot afford to alienate its advertising revenue stream all the time by publishing negative stories about advertisers.  Often, journalists soften coverage to maintain relationships with what are considered to be important sources.  Sometimes, a journalist holds back or kills a story to avoid exposing a whistleblower or confidential source to risk.  Occasionally, there are also legal concerns such as avoiding libel or slander civil suits.

In spite of their own failings, the established media are keen to charge social media with the crime of poisoning the hitherto good name of journalism.  In my opinion, the problem is not that the social media have created bad behaviours, but that such doubtful conduct has been democratised. The idea that the traditional media consistently applied high standards is a myth.

My personal opinion is that there are many examples where the social media themselves have played a powerful role in holding powerful interests to account. Thet too have acted as a vital tool for bypassing state censorship, breaking news instantly, and empowering citizen journalism.  The downside is that they also introduced severe challenges like rapid misinformation, targeted online harassment of journalists, and new avenues for state surveillance and digital authoritarian control.

On the other hand, the social media too is being increasingly questioned when it comes to news access and freedom of the press.  The fact is that even on the social media there is a lack of competition.  It is dominated by the likes of Facebook, X, and TikTok, which are privately owned and often have billionaires running them. While the social media allows journalists and citizens to bypass traditional state gatekeepers, it also subjects them to unprecedented levels of corporate algorithmic manipulation, state surveillance, and online hostility.

The thing is that the way we see the world and act on it depend on the information we have. The free flow of ideas is a key driver of vibrant societies and human progress.  This is why "Publish and be damned" must be defended both in the traditional and the social media.