Showing posts with label Cameroon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cameroon. Show all posts

September 5, 2024

A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, has an opinion piece in The Washington Post: "How the quiet war against press freedom could come to America."

Here's a gift link so you can read the whole thing. Excerpt:
It has been only eight years since Donald Trump popularized the term “fake news” as a cudgel to dismiss and attack journalism that challenged him. 
That phrase, from the president of the United States, was all the encouragement many would-be authoritarians needed. In the following years, around 70 countries on six continents have enacted “fake news” laws. Nominally aimed at stamping out disinformation, many primarily serve to allow governments to punish independent journalism. Under these laws, journalists have faced fines, arrest and censorship for reporting on a separatist conflict in Cameroon, documenting Cambodian sex-trafficking rings, chronicling the covid-19 pandemic in Russia, and questioning Egyptian economic policy. Trump has effectively championed this effort, as he did when he told Bolsonaro at a joint news conference, “I’m very proud to hear the president use the term ‘fake news.’”