THE YEAR 2023 LEAVES A CHALLENGING BALANCE FOR JOURNALISM IN THE WORLD
At the end of the year 2023 and facing the challenges of 2024, EditoRed presents a complex balance for journalism in Europe, Latin America and the world in general.
Jesús González Mateos, president of the Association of Publishers of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, EditoRed, has detailed the situation of journalism. Here we present his assessment, which is accompanied by a vision of the challenges for the future of the profession.
MURDERED JOURNALISTS
A total of 63 journalists have been killed during the war between Israel and Hamas (56 in Gaza, 4 in Israel, 3 in southern Lebanon), exceeding the number recorded worldwide last year. Excluding this conflict, in 2023, 45 journalists were killed in the course of or because of their profession, 16 fewer than last year. This is the lowest figure recorded since 2002.
Although the number of journalists killed in Latin America has dropped significantly, from 26 in 2022 to 6 in 2023, information professionals still do not work safely, as evidenced by the recent kidnappings and armed attacks in Mexico. The record number of violent incidents recorded in 2022 in the Region is producing a growing phenomenon of self-censorship among journalists, which translates into the proliferation of news black holes, where organized crime and corruption top the list of topics for which journalists risk their lives.
JOURNALISTS IN PRISON
521 media professionals will start 2024 in prison, compared to 569 in 2022. For yet another year, China remains the world’s largest prison for journalists. 121 media professionals are locked up in Chinese prisons (12 of them in Hong Kong and 42 in Xinjiang), representing almost a quarter (23%) of all imprisoned journalists in the world. With its increasingly repressive policies, Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus joins the top three regimes in terms of the number of journalists imprisoned in 2023: 39 are currently in prison (7 more than in 2022). Belarus is also the country with the highest number of women journalists imprisoned on its territory (10), after China (14).
JOURNALISTS KIDNAPPED
54 journalists are being held hostage around the world. Of the seven captured this year, two are still being held against their will: Malian journalists Saleck Ag jiddou and Moustapha Koné, kidnapped on November 7 in northern Mali, a few months after the release of French journalist Olivier Dubois in the same region. The other journalists still in captivity are concentrated in Syria (38), Iraq (9), Yemen (4) and Mexico (1).
MISSING JOURNALISTS
Mexico remains the country with the highest number of missing journalists in the world, with 31 disappearances out of a total of 84. In total, Latin America accounts for more than half of the world’s missing journalists (43).
Wars, totalitarian or populist governments, mafias and organized crime are mainly responsible for these terrible figures. However, being the most tragic threat to the profession, they are not the only risks we face.
THE IA AND UNFAIR COMPETITION
The irruption of Artificial Intelligence, a disruptive technology that is evolving as fast as it is opaque in its uses, is already transforming the production of information and the consumption habits of our audiences. A reality of which we professional organizations and journalistic companies are aware and which has led us to clamor for clear rules of the game regarding the use of AI. This pressure is fortunately not being ignored by legislators, as has been the case of the recent approval of the first Artificial Intelligence Law in the world by the European Union.
Likewise, the large technological platforms, content aggregators, have continued to act illegally using data from our media and competing unfairly with us, in an unequal battle, but that should not lead us to decline in the defense of our legitimate interests. The best proof of this is the lawsuit filed by the AMI (Spanish Media Association) against META or the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft.
UNITY IN THE FACE OF CHALLENGES
This is a panorama that is not alien to our profession, which has always had to fight against the powers that have wanted to control information and the continuous technological changes that we have been able to face. However, in a globalized world, it is clear that the unity of professionals and their companies is more necessary and effective than ever. It was in this spirit that EditoRed, our association created to strengthen freedom of expression and the right to information on both sides of the Atlantic, came into being.
With this mission we have worked during 2023 with multiple initiatives and we will continue to do so in the 2024 that is now beginning.
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