Journalism is a bastion of democracy: we must not let it crumble

One rainy evening last November, I lit a candle in memory of the assassinated Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnirová at their Memorial in Bratislava. It was very cold and windy, but our small delegation from the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) was determined to pay their respects to these two young people, murdered because one of them was not afraid to hold power to account.  

Our guide for the evening, journalist Tomáš Madleňák from the Ján Kuciak Investigative Centre, told us that the murders committed in February 2018 sent shockwaves through Slovakia as Ján Kuciak became the first journalist to be assassinated since the country gained its independence.  

He died because he had exposed suspicious transactions by a prominent Slovak businessman. The protests over his death shook the then Slovak government, leading to the resignation of the prime minister, Robert Fico. 

To preserve the legacy of their murdered colleague, a group of Slovak journalists set up the Investigative Centre, a non-profit organisation and independent media outlet with a mission to continue uncovering organised crime, corruption and other criminal activities, as well as disinformation and those promoting it in Slovakia.  

To say that I was moved by the bravery of Ján Kuciak and his colleagues is an understatement. On that evening in the Slovak capital, where we held our Connecting EU seminar 2023, I decided to propose that the 2024 seminar should be dedicated to journalism and its fight for truth.  

Connecting EU is the EESC’s top communication event, bringing together communication professionals from the civil society organisations and national social and economic councils represented in the EESC. It is held every year and focuses on a different topic at the centre of public debate and relevant to civil society.  

The reason for dedicating Connecting EU 2024 to journalism and media freedom is not only to salute the work of the many brave reporters who risk their lives bringing the truth to light. My intention was also to show that civil society is the biggest ally of journalists as they fight for integrity and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves 

The EESC has always advocated for media independence and freedom - this point has been made in many of our opinions. We supported the European Media Freedom Act and the Commission’s proposal to protect journalists and rights defenders from strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs).  

The EESC was critical of the Commission’s proposal for the Defence of Democracy package, expressing reservations about its timing and approach and arguing that the package could harm civic spaces in Europe. 

In many cases of breach of media freedoms, in the EU or in candidate countries, the EESC firmly supported those silenced by the authorities. 

We do this because we know that restricting media freedoms and making media dependent on the interests of the rich and powerful will inevitably restrict the freedom of civil society and of every individual. We will lose our voice too. 

This year, our seminar is timely as we need to talk about journalism, maybe more than ever.  

Judging by the latest reports by media freedom watchdogs, the situation across Europe is worsening.  

Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) - a project launched by an alliance of journalists' networks and organisations to track, monitor and respond to media freedom violations - recorded 756 cases in the first half of 2024. Of these, 474 occurred in EU Member States, while the rest were in candidate countries. 

According to the MFRR monitoring report, intimidation and threats were the most common violations, followed by denying journalists access to reporting locations or preventing them from sharing their content. Discrediting, harassment and bullying are also on the rise. 

Nearly a quarter of violations happened online, primarily involving online harassment, along with hacking and the creation of deep fakes or fake websites to spread disinformation. 

Most concerning is that there were nearly as many incidents involving government and public officials acting against journalists in the first half of 2024 as in the whole of 2023 - 22.4% of the violations recorded. However, almost 33% of the cases during this period involved journalists being harassed by private individuals. Several EU and candidate countries have introduced or proposed legal measures threatening media freedoms, including so-called foreign agent laws. 

However, attempts to stifle media freedoms or control them through opaque ownership are not the only problems facing journalism. The rise of online platforms and, more recently, of generative AI have brought new challenges. New ways of communicating are providing unprecedented opportunities for disinformation and political manipulation. 

In its Digital News Report 2024, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism stated that rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are likely to trigger further changes that may decrease traffic to news websites and apps, creating more uncertainty about future information environments. 

Only about 22% of respondents now identify news websites or apps as their main news sources, a decline of 10 percentage points since 2018. Video-based platforms such as YouTube and TikTok have gained importance for news consumption, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. TikTok is particularly popular among younger audiences, with its use for news rising to 13% overall and 23% among those aged 18–24. 

If you are interested in discussing how to preserve independent and accountable journalism in this post-truth era, I invite you to follow the Connecting EU seminar online on 17 and 18 October. Under the title A bastion of democracy: helping journalism survive and thrive, the seminar will feature an impressive line-up of speakers, including the director of the Ján Kuciak Investigative Centre Lukaš Diko and the Belarus filmmaker and journalist Andrei Gnyot who is detained in Serbia and will speak via a video message. 

I hope the seminar will be part of an important conversation we need to have about making sure that journalism remains a public good and a bastion of democracy, or we run the risk of letting democracy crumble.  

George Orwell once said: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.’ PR will not save democracy, but with accountable journalism we still have a chance. 

Laurenţiu Plosceanu is Vice-President for Communication at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).