Reporters across Europe are working under increasingly challenging conditions and attempts to silence them have grown, the Committee to Protect Journalists has warned.
In an extensive study released on Wednesday, the US-headquartered organization said that while the European Union has initiated laws to support media freedom over the years, progress in finding sustainable solutions to combat threats against journalists within the bloc has been slow. “We have also seen a daily increase in online harassment and digital threats against journalists, including threats from very rich and powerful individuals who want to silence them through vexatious lawsuits called SLAPP—or strategic lawsuit against public participation,” Tom Gibson, CPJ’s Europe representative, told Al Jazeera.
In September 2022, the European Commission introduced the European Media Freedom Act, seeking to protect “protect media pluralism and independence in the EU.” But according to Gibson, some EU nations are actually putting up a bit of a fight to stop the EMFA from being adopted, since it addresses threats of “media capture,” and is also an anti-SLAPP directive. The CPJ also called on the EU to take more initiative in protecting press freedom outside Europe.
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