Abstract

Across the globe, governments have issued emergency and drastic measures aimed at tracking the spread of COVID-19 and safeguarding public health. Notwithstanding the necessity and importance of some of these measures, this work argues that numerous governments around the world used the pandemic crisis as a pretext to push through restrictions that hamper critical journalism. Drawing from worldwide press freedom monitoring tools and platforms established by various credible global organizations, this study shows that the pandemic crisis exacerbates existing obstacles to press freedom and adds new dimensions to the already documented threats. This is evident not only in authoritarian states, but also in western democracies. Most of the threats documented specifically aim to silence digital journalism, which has gained significant momentum as a result of the pandemic crisis. Overall, the main target of this work is to offer an enriched conceptual approach to the types of threats that press freedom faces in the context of global crisis situations.

摘要

在全球范围内，各国政府已发布紧急和严厉措施，旨在追踪 COVID-19 的传播并保护公众健康。尽管其中一些措施具有必要性和重要性，但这项工作认为，世界各地的许多政府都以大流行危机为借口来推行阻碍批判性新闻业的限制措施。这项研究借鉴了各种可信的全球组织建立的全球新闻自由监测工具和平台，表明大流行危机加剧了新闻自由的现有障碍，并为已经记录在案的威胁增加了新的维度。这不仅在威权国家中很明显，在西方民主国家也很明显。大多数记录在案的威胁专门旨在压制数字新闻，由于大流行危机，它获得了显着的动力。总的来说，这项工作的主要目标是为新闻自由在全球危机情况下面临的威胁类型提供丰富的概念方法。