COMMENT BLOG

Media wars can easily get personal. Today the name of the game is Showtime! Ratings trump sober facts and inconvenient truths. Fox News offers foxy entertainment; The New York Post offers sensationalism; the gutter press epitomised by the likes of the UK’s The Daily...

At the end of 2018, an astonishing statistic was published by CIVICUS Monitor, a research collaborative effort that rates and tracks respect for fundamental freedoms in 196 countries. CIVICUS is a global alliance made up of an influential network of civil society...

Freedom of information, including the right to access information held by public bodies, is crucial to democracy, good governance, and good citizenship. It is also a human right, protected under international law and, in many countries, under constitutional law....

Sobering words for those who still believe that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are the panacea for the world’s ills. In “Developing Countries Losing Out To Digital Giants” (IPS News, 17 October 2018), Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury write:...

Communication used to be singular. A letter, a newspaper, a radio or television program. It was a largely one-way, edited version of certain parts of reality. Today, communications are plural: a non-stop barrage of texts, sounds, and images from all directions and at...

Social media are accused of bringing about the demise of traditional journalism. They are used to tar news stories with the brush of “fake news” as loud-mouthed politicians eagerly point the finger at what they deem to be critical or unfavourable coverage. And yet the...

The world’s leading newspapers are struggling to maintain their place as voices of conscience in society when via social media everyone is free to express alternative views and opinions. Of course, having a public voice carries with it the responsibility to use it...

How media report on sexual violence when political interests are at play is a litmus test for how serious they are about professional ethics. Take the case of the American jurist Brett Kavanaugh’s highly publicised hearing for justice of the US Supreme Court that took...

During Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-85), the people’s ability to exercise some of their most fundamental human rights was severely curtailed. In addition to engaging in torture, extrajudicial killings, and repression against opposition groups, the successive...

There has always been a suspicion that radio waves do more harm than good. With the arrival of the Internet of Things – wireless computing devices embedded in such everyday objects as fridges, washing machines and coffee makers – the scenario easily slips into one of...

On 7 September 2018, former President Obama delivered a pointed critique of the Trump presidency. Speaking to students at the University of Illinois, he urged political awareness and action, saying: “When there’s a vacuum in our democracy, when we don’t vote, when we...