The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Press Freedom Under Attack?

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

In their February report, the Committee to Protect Journalists revealed that 2024 was the deadliest year for press in CPJ history, with almost 70 per cent killed by Israel. In honour of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, The Agenda invites Jessica Jerreat, press freedom editor; Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists; Heather Bakken, president of World Press Freedom Canada and Anna Romandash, Ukrainian freelance journalist to discuss what happens when the right to independent information is taken away. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He was like a father figure to me. Unfortunately, found myself in a very vulnerable position. This is a story about a psychiatrist in Toronto accused of abusing two of his patients, which he denies. It's also a story about a system that is supposed to protect patients. From TVO Podcasts, I'm Krisha Collier, and this is The Oath. Subscribe today wherever you listen. 2024 was the deadliest year for the fourth estate with journalists and media workers

killed in conflicts from Gaza to Ukraine. Given the dangerous environments they cover, not to mention attacks on the media from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump, we decided to invite some guests on World Press Freedom Day to discuss how free the media really are. Joining us now to do just that, we welcome in Washington, D.C., Jessica Jarrett,

who reports on press freedom around the world. In New York City, Jody Ginsburg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. In our nation's capital, Heather Bakken, President of World Press Freedom Canada, and Anna Romandash, freelance journalist who's been reporting on the war in Ukraine. And I guess as I welcome all four of you

to our program tonight, I should say, I am sorry that this kind of program needs to be done, and we'll share some numbers right now which indicate why we need to do it. This has been an awful year for journalists around the world. Total number of journalists or media workers killed worldwide in 2024 was 124. That is higher than the prior record which was 113. Total number of work-related journalist killings, 103, again higher

than the previous record of 81. Highest number of press members killed by a single country in a year, that'd be 85 in Israel, 78 was the previous high. Number of Palestinian journalists or media workers killed, 82, again higher than the prior record of 75. And the number of freelancers killed around the world is 43, almost twice as many as the prior record 12 years ago. Those numbers from the Committee to Protect Journalists special report from February of this year. Jodie, let me get you in here first.

What do these numbers say to you? These numbers say to us that this is the most dangerous time ever to be a journalist. And what I think is important to remember is though while killings are obviously the most egregious form of silencing of a journalist, they're actually the tip of the iceberg. Last year was also a close to record high number for the number of journalists in jail worldwide, more than 360 journalists in jail at the end of last year. We are seeing increasing numbers of journalists attacked and harassed online. We are seeing

increasing numbers of countries crack down on journalism and the independent media including here in the United States. So this is a time where we need to come out very vocally in defense of a free press because we rely on journalists to provide information that helps us guide and live our everyday lives. More on that as we continue our conversation. Jessica, let me get you in here at this point and ask you to tell us, based on your own reporting, how much of these worsening conditions you see or hear about from others.

Well, we really are in a position where for the last 17 years we've seen a decline in civil liberties and I think that really has been showcased with the figures that Jodie talks about, the rise of threats, attacks, jailings and killings of journalists and it just makes the world less informed at a time when we really need journalists out in the field. I find the numbers incredibly troubling and increasingly we're seeing that in countries that have robust democracies that are also failing on these figures in terms of arrests and threats and hostile rhetoric to media. Anna, it is a tragedy when anybody is killed in a senseless immoral war and you have been

covering unfortunately a lot of that as it relates to Ukraine. But tell us why you think it's somewhat different when a journalist is killed. It is different because journalists are specifically targeted because of the role that they have or the job that they do for the societies. And particularly in Ukraine during the full scale Russian war, journalists have been the targets, journalists have been the people that the Russian occupying army was looking for whenever they would occupy a particular town or particular city. I've had colleagues who were kidnapped in occupation, who were tortured, who were killed while in occupation. And that is because the autocracies around the world,

in particular Russian autocratic regime, they recognize that journalists are extremely important because they are able to break the autocratic narratives. They're able to shed the truth, shed light on what's really going on. And that's extremely dangerous for anybody who wants to fight against this truth. and that's why killing of a journalist is sadly the most efficient approach that a lot of autocracies around the

world are choosing. Some are less extreme right now but they are nevertheless also looking for other ways to silence journalists through legal means, through threats and other tools. Heather, let's bring the story home here. You're representing World Press Freedom Canada. It has reported several violations against Canadian journalists over the past year. Give us a sense about what that's about. Well, this is an election year following the 2023 or 2024 where the most we had the most free elections in the world. What's happened here at home? I think we're getting a sense as Canadians that our physical borders

are not preventing the information ecosystem from being attacked. There's a lot of attempts to sway public opinion. How does that play out? Well, we have a charter right. It's section 2B of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the press the right to speak out and inform our citizens. And what we're finding is that right is being squeezed out, especially in the political arena. Nova Scotia has prevented any of their legislatures from talking to the media in the Ledge. We saw that there were mass protesters during the NATO protests in Montreal that actually physically assaulted journalists. And we have seen in the major federal parties that for the first time in my recollection, at any rate,

the press pool was not invited on the conservative tour. And there was a rally where the press was relegated to the back. The liberals at the beginning of the kickoff for their federal campaign, they denied access to credential journalists from the Western standard to go into that event. So it cuts many, many ways. But I think the really the crux of this in Canada is that quite often, journalism is one of the last lines of defense for accountability. And what we're finding is that desire to be held accountable to the people is being squeezed out. And what the press does that reminds politicians that they work for us, not the other way around. Jody, I will remember, and I'm sure you do too, in years past that if reporters had to go into a war zone,

they might, on their flak jackets, have in big taped or a big sign saying media or TV or something like that to let people know that they were there to do a job, to witness history and to report on it. And it therefore used to be kind of accepted that you wouldn't target them in a way that you would quote unquote the enemy. Does that sign of media or the sign that says TV on your flak jacket provide any protection at all anymore? Sadly, in many countries it doesn't. You're right. For many years we'll be familiar with those sort of navy blue flak jackets, the words press very prominently displayed, people driving in cars that would have press or TV prominently displayed on the roof of the car so that those

in planes or shooting from above would know not to target them. Unfortunately, what we are increasingly seeing is that calling yourself a journalist, being known to be a journalist makes you a target. We've seen that in the Israel-Gaza war, where as you said, record numbers of journalists, of Gazan journalists, Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli forces, in many cases we believe deliberately, which would be a war crime. It's really important to remember that journalists are civilians, as we heard from Anna, they play an absolutely critical role in bringing information to the world about what's happening in conflicts. It's extraordinarily

difficult, obviously, for ordinary people to understand what's happening in something as complicated and dangerous as a war. And journalists play this critical role of providing independent eyewitness information so that others can know what's happening. And in many cases, unfortunately, the wearing of that press vest is an invitation, unfortunately, for journalists to be targeted. And we've particularly seen that in the Israel-Gaza war, but we've also seen it internationally, and we've seen it not just, as I say, in terms of the killings, but in the way in which journalists are being targeted unlawfully through arrests,

through the kinds of public smearing that we're seeing of journalists, all as part and parcel of what we've heard from the other speakers, as an attempt to silence those people who are speaking truth to power. Jessica, I think we've all looked with a certain amount of fascination and deep concern at the nature of the deteriorating relationship between the current American administration and members of the media, particularly in Washington DC. Can you give us a sort of a state of the relationship report on how that's going right now? I can. I should say up front, I'm joining you today in my personal capacity. I'm currently, I

worked for Voice of America, a congressionally funded independent broadcaster that provides journalism to some of the most censored countries in the world. And a White House executive order on March 15th shuttered our entire broadcast, silenced us for the first time in our 83-year history. So I'm currently a named plaintiff in a lawsuit fighting to get our journalists back into the newsroom where we belong. But that really comes amid a broader pushback against media in DC. We've seen the AP barred from the Oval Office and White House events because of viewpoint discrimination over how it chooses to name a body of water, the Gulf of Mexico v. the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Mexico v. Gulf of America.

We've seen numerous lawsuits filed against news outlets and journalists who are just perceived as being biased or overly critical of the administration. The Federal Commission complaints providing, setting up investigations, and just last week, one of these flagship executive editors stepping down from 60 minutes saying that he felt that his ability to work independently like he has in that role for a long time was under threat. Can you just follow up with this? The Associated Press has obviously been around for decades and decades and it has sort of been kind of, well, I guess regarded as the most, how do I describe this? I mean, the most middle of the road, they report in all of the newspapers of the United States of America

and around the world, and you know, for the first time ever, they've been barred from attending White House briefings. How is that being regarded by the media in Washington, D.C.? It's a huge loss. We have to remember that the AP, not only is there reporting for itself, but it works as part of the press pool. So they're providing content and real-time updates on what's happening in the executive branch to affiliates and subscribers around the world. And to have a media outlet that, as you say, is so straight down the middle, so independent,

and for which pretty much every news outlet, I think, in the West relies on for the style guide and for its sort of editorial guidance, being shuttered out of these events, I think, is incredibly troubling. We're also seeing this at a time when the White House press pool is being reorganized to allow sort of people who don't have as much journalistic integrity into the newsroom, into the White House briefing room. Well, that's a very pleasant way of saying there are a lot of sort of agent provocateur or, you know, out and out activists who are now being, who are pretending to be members of the press who are essentially getting access to what happens in the White House briefing room. Jodie, maybe I could get you to follow up on that.

You've got a new report out on the first 100 days of the Trump administration. What can you add to that? Well, as Jessica said, this has been unprecedented in the speed of attack on the press more broadly. One of the things that happened just this Friday was some guidance that had been produced by the Department of Justice that essentially meant that journalists were protected from leak investigations was rescinded. We are fully expecting an explosion, frankly, of leak investigations that could put not just the ability of journalists to report freely under threat but also put sources at risk.

Remember that journalists often rely on individuals who want to blow the whistle on corruption that they see taking place sometimes at the highest level and what we are concerned about is that we're going to see many more of these federally mandated leak investigations that will put huge amounts of pressure on journalists and newsrooms to stop doing their work, to stop exposing corruption and wrongdoing, which is what we rely on journalism for. Anna, let me get you in here to have you tell us about your experiences in trying to cover the war in Ukraine. Give us a sense about the nature of your work and how much more difficult it is to do now than perhaps in previous years.

So the Russian full-scale invasion changed our work completely because there's general insecurity around the country for all of the citizens, all of the civilians within Ukraine. But being a journalist, you do feel more of that insecurity because as was mentioned earlier by my colleagues, having that journalistic quest, being a journalist, you are the target, you are very often somebody that the Russian forces would be specifically trying to kill or trying to get because of what you do, because of what your role is for society. So as a journalist in Ukraine, I've been covering what's going on on the frontline. I've been also visiting the territories that have been deoccupied and liberated by the Ukrainian army.

I've met with many of my colleagues who actually survived occupation. So I've met with some of the journalists in Kherson region who were kidnapped while they were in occupied Kherson, who were tortured, who were in these so-called torture chambers or jails that were temporary installed by the Russian soldiers during the occupation. And it was specifically because these people were journalists, so when Russians would occupy a territory, they would already have lists of journalists, lists of people that they were looking for, and then would torture them and they

would try to get information from them. And there are many of my colleagues who were kidnapped or were already in occupied territories when the full scale work broke out doing their job and now they are in jails. There are these mock trials. They've been jailed for invented causes, for invented things up to 20 years. Some of my colleagues have been killed. There was this very prominent and a very sad case quite recently of my colleague, Victoria Roschina, who while reporting on what's happening in the occupied territories of Ukraine's South, she was kidnapped by the Russian soldiers. She was sent to the mainland Russia where she was tortured and she was skilled there. And only a few weeks ago, Ukraine was able to receive her body, her remains,

with with severe signs of torture. So this is the reality of many journalists working in Ukraine right now. I talked to a lot of survivors, a lot of people who survived Russian occupation. So there's also a huge psychological toll on journalists because you have to protect yourself. You also have to protect your sources. You talk about very sensitive issues. In addition, there's obviously an issue of financing, the loss of a lot of support from USAID and other international donors that's also affecting a lot of Ukrainian media. So to put it briefly, it's really difficult to be a journalist in a conflict zone for security reasons, for psychological reasons, for financial reasons. My colleagues continue doing this job

because they understand that this is extremely important. And if you don't report on what's happening in Ukraine, in Gaza, in a lot of different places across the world. If you don't provide honest information on the conflicts around the globe, then somebody will fill this vacuum, will fill this void with fake news, with misinformation, and we're seeing a lot of it. And that's why we need to support independent journalists around the world, especially in the conflict zones like Ukraine. Thank you for that, Anna.

Heather, let me get you in here and ask, I mean, thankfully, reporting in Canada on most days of the week does not involve taking your life into your hands. But that's not to say we have no issues here that are worth bringing to the public's attention. What concerns you about being a reporter in Canada right now? What I would say is I'm a former journalist, but in representing our press freedom rights, I just want to remind people that during the convoy in Ottawa, people were being physically assaulted.

When there's political rhetoric that calls out journalists, the profession itself and then individuals, it has a chilling effect on reporters. The CBC, our public broadcaster, my understanding is that they had to remove some of the logos off of their vans. So in other words, people who are covering these events as for Canadians can't actually go out and do the job without fear of some kind of retribution. What we saw in our election debate where, and well, you were the moderator for that, we had a media organization that had acquired third party status and came in, sorry, you weren't on that one, Steve, I guess it was a French one, and they came in and they basically pulled a stunt that did not enable credential journalists who have rigorous standards and practices to be able to ask questions to inform opinions. And I would say the other point is when Ana talks about the psychological toll, we're not in an active kinetic conflict zone here, but there is a chilling effect on journalists with the threat of harm.

But also, you know, there was talk in our election and leading up to it for defunding the CBC. And as Canada's public broadcaster, look, it's not perfect, but to say that it needed to be defunded, it always leaves everybody back footed. They don't have stable funding. They can't plan ahead. So there's chaos created within that. And when you think about a national broadcaster that is sometimes the only source of news in a local community,

it has the most trafficked website in Canada, and they can be held liable for misreporting or making a mistake. So in other words, if you defund that, where are people going to get the news? And that vacuum does get filled. And unfortunately, we're seeing an increasing rate is the independent media organizations. And while they need, we need to have a robust independent media in our country.

There are some that are being, that are foreign owned, and we're not able to get a line of sight on who exactly owns them, so we don't understand what potential editorial influence they may wield. And increasingly, we're seeing that in local newspapers as well. So when there has been a collapse in the business model of the industry,

or has everybody scrambling to figure out how to reach the audiences, a lot of bad actors have moved into places where there are news deserts. And unfortunately, it's really hard for some Canadians to understand what's true and what's not true. And that could have an impact on our democracy. I, Jodie, I'm going to play devil's advocate here and talk about the other side of the coin, which is, I wonder whether there is so much antipathy to media out there because so many people don't trust what we do. And I guess I would like to ask you to speak to the issue of, do we deserve to be as mistrusted by significant segments of the population as we are?

I don't think we deserve to be as mistrusted as we are, but I understand why people do. Journalists and media organizations are not perfect, and there have been many, many missteps. I think, for example, about in the UK, where I'm from, the phone hacking scandal. Journalists conducting illegal activity to produce journalism, not in the public interest. And that dissuaded a lot of people from journalism, it made them feel that this wasn't the kinds of things that was delivering value. And I think we have not done a good enough job of

explaining and defending what we do. I think too often we have sat in ivory towers expecting people to understand that just journalism was good for them and they needed to suck it up, as it were. And I think we need to do a much, much better job of explaining to people how news is gathered, how it is gathered ethically, how different news outlets apply different editorial standards, so that people can understand the difference between news that is independently gathered. Can understand the difference, for example, between an associated press and perhaps an individual who is purporting to be a journalist but is actually in the pay of a state entity and just delivering propaganda and frankly lies.

But we need to explain that to people and we need to talk about the impact that that has. But in terms of trust, I think it's important to remember that people do return to journalism over and over again as a trusted source. We saw that time and again in California in the wildfires that we had recently. People returned to trusted news sources, local radio stations, for up-to-date accurate information about where the fires were, how to avoid them, what was being done to tackle them. Many places, including in America, still do not have reliable internet access. So we can't simply say, oh, everybody now has the internet,

we no longer have radio, because in many places, particularly rural parts of America, for example, and many parts of the world, people rely heavily on local radio providers, for example. So we can, I think, stress those kinds of journalists, those kinds of media organizations to remind people that actually they are relying on news and journalism in all sorts of ways in their everyday lives. They just might not recognize it as such. Jessica, maybe I could get you to speak to the conventional wisdom I hear all the time,

which is that legacy media are made up of a bunch of lefties and that if you're a conservative in my country or yours, you can't take at face value the reporting that you read, see or hear from legacy media. Speak to that if you would. I think that's a sort of convenient and misconstrued allegation of bias and to speak to some of the earlier points here, this is particularly why public broadcasters are so important. Voice of America, for instance, we're congressionally mandated

to be independent, authoritative, and accurate, and we have to uphold those standards. To speak to Jody's point, we need to do a better job of being transparent about how journalism works. Journalism is slow and costly, and it's so much faster to act fast and loose with the facts on social media and spread mis and disinformation. But journalists,

we need this credible journalism. We need it to be invested in because we are, at the end of the day, the public watchdog. We need to be able to hold people accountable. I don't really hold weight with these accusations of bias. I think that as journalists, as news outlets, we sometimes do get things wrong. We can be better at listening and making sure that we're actually representing a wider sector of society and engaging with our audiences more. But with the economic model as it is, it's harder to have journalists in the field as much. I started in local journalism in a very small newspaper in Britain, and you lived and worked in your community,

and it made you so much better with how you report because you're there with people in real time. And if we could get back to that, it would think would help not only build trust and transparency, but also serve our communities better. We talk about all of these small areas or communities that are becoming news deserts now because there's no local media there representing them and being their very visible advocate anymore.

Yeah, Heather, what's it? What you know, what are the prospects for those areas of Canada? And sadly, there are too many of them which have become news deserts. They no longer have a daily newspaper. They no longer have a daily television. They no longer have a daily television, a regular homegrown television service. What happens to them as we think about Press Freedom Day? I think we have to change the way we approach journalism and media and how we think about getting the people in there.

I think Jessica made an excellent point about, it's not that journalists are biased, but with a concentration of news gathering in the urban centers and a central centralization of news gathering and a concentration of ownership. I think the phenomena that we're seeing, and this is one of the root causes we need to address more thoughtfully, and that is who is going into journalism these days. When there's a centralization of news gathering, it means you have to live in a city center. And the city centers in Canada have become unaffordable to most Canadians. So what you're finding is people who are able to withstand the low salaries, the instabilities,

the psychological toll it takes, typically may be of a certain mindset. And quite often that's associated with the affordability situation. If you had more support for local news sources, you can live in a community. It doesn't cost as much to live in smaller communities, so the salary expectations are different. So if you're asking people, would you want to go into journalism? One of the criteria is, is it going to provide you with an income that helps you with it in terms of affordability crisis, helps you survive. So we have to do a better job at recruiting people into the trade and making sure that they are properly trained to go out into

areas. I would love to see some kind of mesh network system with the CBC, where they get back to the local communities, because like all politics is local, all news is local. And when they don't have any access to broadband, when they don't have any local news reporting, where are they going to find their news? And I think we need to do a better job of understanding that part who's going into journalism. And that has to be a more diverse group of people to represent the communities they come from. Back in the day, as you know, when journalism hit the height of its trust, kind of barometer, when you had the Walter Cronkite,

the Edward R. Murrow's in, and Peter Jennings. A lot of these guys didn't even finish high school. They lived in the blue collar communities they were reporting on. So we have to understand that that is a critical part of having a robust journalistic ecosystem in a country. I'm just talking about Canada, as big as Canada. We have to cover coast to coast to coast. And the people who live in those communities are best suited to report on them. Right.

Anna, I want to circle back to you and see if I can. Well, OK, let me put it this way. I don't mean this to be a melodramatic question, but the reporting that you do and the reporting, for example, that we do here in Canada is dramatically, thankfully, different. But I do wonder whether when you are reporting in Ukraine, do you ever have a day where you're not in fear of your life? No, but it's strange. You learn how to tune it out.

You just don't think about it. You have to do your job. I would say security is relative. There's no such thing as absolute security. I think a lot of my colleagues in Ukraine, we just accepted this reality. We realized that there's nobody to replace us. If we don't do our job, If we don't do our job,

if we don't do our jobs, then Russia propagandists will do it for us, which would be way worse. So we take the risks because we know that what we do is extremely important. Okay, I'm gonna follow up on that. I mean, you are running the risk of being wounded or killed every day you are on the job covering a war.

So why do it? As I said, because I believe in what I do. I believe in what my colleagues do. I believe it's extremely important we communicate what's actually happening in Ukraine to Ukrainians. We communicate what's happening in Ukraine to the world. Um, it's important for me and for my colleagues to have access to truthful

information about the Russian war in Ukraine, about Russian crimes in Ukraine. Um, and I think this is just, there's just no other way instead of there's, there's no alternative to working and providing honest information, especially in conflict zones. So journalists recognize the risks. We don't expect a lot of special treatment or any special treatment. We recognize that very often we may even be accused or criticized for our reporting because of the polarization that there is, because of the fake news that there are, but we also understand that there is no alternative to

what we do. We just have to report, we have to be honest, we have to be truthful. And I also feel, as a Ukrainian journalist, there is also this added value for me is that I am able, through my work, to share some of the testimonies that are so extremely important of the people who survived or surviving the Russian War, who are fighting against the aggression. And I think that's extremely valuable. Jessica, we have seen in the United States that there are some law firms that have had confrontations with the administration and they have decided for whatever reasons to kind of roll over and accept the way that the administration has bullied them.

And I note that you're not doing that and many media organizations in the United States are not doing that as it relates to this administration. Maybe you could talk to us about why you feel it's so important that media organizations not roll over and in fact confront bullying by the White House when it happens. I think in the US I mean we have the First Amendment we have a really strong Constitution and we have a robust legal system I'm seeing that firsthand at the moment with the legal efforts to get VOA back on air but this isn't a time I I think, covering press freedom for a really long time. You learn a lot of lessons from other journalists in countries that have seen themselves tested with leaders who want to control the message. And what I've always taken

away from them is just how strong they are in sticking to our journalistic principles. We are here to represent our audiences and to ask those tough questions. This isn't a time to back down. This isn't a time to go silent. We need to be examining everything that's happening and explaining it to our audiences in an objective and independent way. That's what we're here for. That's what me, myself as a journalist and my colleagues, that's what we intend to keep doing. This is an important time. We've just hit a hundred days of this new White House administration

and journalists need to be there to explain the impact of these policies here in the U.S. and also globally. Jodi, last 30 seconds to you. People are watching this. They're listening to this on this station or on a podcast. What would you like them to take from this conversation? I want them to take that journalists are people who are providing information for us so that

we can live freely and safely and to support them is absolutely critical. Marvelous. Mr. Director, thank you for that foreshot so I can thank Anna Romandosh, the freelance journalist who's done so much great reporting in Ukraine, Jody Ginsburg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists coming to us from New York, Jessica Jarit, Press Freedom Editor out of Washington, D.C., and Heather Bakken, President of World Press Freedom Canada coming to us from our nation's capital. I want to thank the four of you for coming on to TVO tonight and sharing your views with us on this very important World Press Freedom Day.

Thank you everyone.