Part I: Trusted Journalism Under Fire

What happens when there are no longer any journalists to report?

By Jeff Danziger

Cartoons by kind courtesy of Jeff Danziger, cartoonist and author, plus member of Cartooning for Peace, a Global Geneva Group partner.

“Truth is the first casualty of war”. For a foreign correspondent with over forty years’ experience covering conflicts, humanitarian crises, and political upheavals across the globe, I am all too often reminded of this well-worn maxim attributed either to the Greek tragedian Aeschylus or to Hiram Johnson, a U.S. senator during the First World War.

Autocrats, populists, and demagogues, too, are familiar with the concept. But truth is not their concern. Their first instinct is to control the narrative, whether by silencing independent voices, intimidating reporters, or flooding the information space with propaganda.

Beyond obvious assaults by the likes of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Xi Jinping’s China or Recep Erdoğan’s Turkey, journalism is more than ever under siege today than before – and on multiple fronts. This includes governments which like to portray themselves as respected democracies, such as Israel, increasingly viewed as a pariah state by former friends and allies. Media-wise, many Israelis live in a self-contained bubble refusing to acknowledge what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, alienating themselves from the world.

As B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and other Israeli human rights advocates remind us, the world largely ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany. The same thing is now occurring in Israel with the mainstream press refusing to acknowledge, according to a July 2025 report, the “deliberate and calculated policy to destroy Palestinian lives in Gaza in what amounts to genocide.”

Democracy's Blind Spot: The collapse of local news

Of equal concern is the deteriorating situation in the United States, where polarisation has led to a similar bubble. One in five Americans now lack complete access to local news. Their only option is to rely on national broadcasters and newspapers, if they can afford the subscriptions, as well as politically-slanted social media, much of it heavily biased and misleading.

As National Public Radio (NPR) CEO Katherine Mayer recently pointed out on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, this means that many Americans have little idea with what is happening in their own backyard. Ninety-seven per cent of the country currently has access to local NPR stations, she said, but many of these outlets are now in danger of closing because of President Donald Trump’s slashing of federal funding. Given that America’s over 1,500 public radio and television stations also serve as the nation’s emergency alerts, this will effectively deny many Americans access to critical information on tornadoes, earthquakes and other catastrophes.

As Mayer stated, “no one is covering PTA meetings, or traffic and community, or the issues of how their forests are being managed, or what prices look like with agricultural and commodity sales."

As both Mayer and others emphasise, the steady decline over the past 20 years in local news has resulted in higher rates of polarisation with a growing lack of trust in civic institutions, including democracy. “When you take away local news and public radio, you are undermining our ability to trust one another and to talk about how we want to live together in our towns and cities and make democratic decisions,” Mayer added.

From Führer to Führer

Jeff Danziger

The promotion of hatred

Since coming to power, Trump has been stoking political division while pursuing his own personal pogrom against independent press through financial intimidation, lawsuits and outright threats. He and his cohorts have also been exploiting the recent killing of Charlie Kirk to promote even greater division and hatred among Americans.

Speaking at Kirk’s memorial, Trump resorted to Islamist rhetoric by referring to the conservative activist as a ‘martyr’. He also said that he preferred to ‘hate’ his opponents. Erika Kirk, the victim’s wife, on the other hand, responded that she forgave her husband’s killer and that “the answer to hate is not hate.” (See William Dowell two articles - first and second - on Kirk in Global Geneva)

As Monika Bauerlein, CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), points out, Trump wants newsrooms that ask tough questions to either “shut up or shut down.” She also notes the staggering extent to which many in Congress and corporate media are lining up to help him do it. When media get intimidated into playing it safe, Bauerline argues, it is the truth that loses, while fear wins.

Who needs freedom of expression?

A rise of information deserts

The traditional business model through subscriptions and advertising that sustained credible reporting for two centuries has collapsed, hollowing out newsrooms and leaving whole regions as “information deserts” not just in North America but Europe. In Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Ticino region, local newspapers are desperately appealing for funding to cover costs warning that without support, there will no longer be any independent on-the-ground civic reporting. The same is happening in other countries.

This steady degradation of the press means that people are finding themselves without the broad and balanced information they need to discern what is credible, and what is not. Instead, they rely on pro-government or politically and religiously oriented media. Or they simply do not bother to inform themselves.

Equally worrying, a whole generation of young people across the planet is drifting away from professional reporting, turning instead to social media influencers and online podcast personalities, many of whom are rarely bound by respect for facts or ethics. “Young people simply can’t be bothered to read legacy media preferring to go with what they find online,” observed Susan Adams, a former Forbes magazine editor in New York.

Even worse, not only are many high school and college students no longer reading, but they cannot write properly either. “They don’t even know how solid journalism is supposed to operate, including the basics, like checking out different sources,” lamented Jon Randal, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent based in Paris. "We're cultivating a generation of ignorance."

The result is a dangerous cocktail of false enlightenment, polarisation, and hatred, fuelled by easily manipulated content.

Democracy dies in darkness unless there is credible information

Trusted reporting: An endangered species

Trusted journalism remains one of the last defences against authoritarianism and corruption. Foremost, reliable journalism, increasingly referred to as ‘authenticity’ reporting, can hold politicians and institutions to account in the public interest. This is precisely what MediaPart, an independent French news platform, was doing when it broke the story on France's Lionel Sarkozy's Libya affair, a lesson, perhaps, for other leaders who have acted illegally.

At the same time, trusted and credible journalism can offer itself as a non-political information vehicle for public South African-style reconciliation initiatives as radical Left and Right movements, all too often based on lies and ignorance, move farther apart.

A Long History of Press Manipulation

Attempts to control or undermine journalism are nothing new. Ever since news journals emerged from the “penny tracts” of the coffee house debates of the 18th and 19th centuries in London, Paris, Vienna or Philadelphia, governments and interest groups have sought to manage public opinion.

When Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul of France in 1800, he shut 60 of Paris’s 73 newspapers, denouncing them as “enemies of the Republic.” Over two centuries later, Donald Trump borrowed the same phrase whenever the press challenged his fabrications.

As the press matured, so too did its influence. From The Times of London, founded in 1785, to the New York Herald, which famously dispatched Henry Morton Stanley to find the missing explorer David Livingstone in Africa, newspapers became powerful players at home and abroad.

Some sensationalized events - “yellow journalism” in the late 19th century helped fuel the Spanish-American War - while others staked their reputation on sober reporting. The Christian Science Monitor, founded in 1908, was deliberately created to combat sensationalism by offering fair, fact-based news.

Dictators have always regarded critical journalism as dangerous. Hitler’s thugs beat and murdered reporters even before he seized power in 1933. The British in colonial India censored news about the Bengal famine of 1943, which claimed an estimated three million lives. Some news outlets complied; others resisted.

Today, the battle for control has grown more ruthless. With the rise of AI and social media, propaganda can spread faster than ever. Authoritarians from Trump’s MAGA strategists to Putin’s disinformation factories promote their own “truths” in the face of honest reporting.

Trump's constantly changing perception of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Putin, Xi, Netanyahu: The Dictatorial Frontlines of Manipulation

Putin, indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court, has ensured Russians know little of his war in Ukraine. State-controlled television still provides the main source of information for over 60 per cent of the population, portraying the invasion as a heroic struggle against “neo-Nazis”. Independent reporters have been jailed, exiled, or killed.

The contrast with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is stark. Then, outspoken mothers and candid press coverage helped force Moscow’s withdrawal. Today, Putin silences dissent with pay-offs, threats, and Stalinist denunciations. The same is happening under Trump with people denounced for critical emails and social media posts causing them to lose their jobs.

China's nigh-total repression of press freedom.

China: Dismantling independent press “in the public interest”

It is a similar story in China, where independent news outlets have been shuttered, outspoken journalists prosecuted. In Hong Kong, once a vibrant media hub, critical newspapers and broadcasters have been systematically dismantled.

The same goes for public dissent whether regarding state coverup of the Wuhan virus (Covid-19) or Communist Party corruption. The Xi regime systematically quashes any form of opposition, including to its ongoing repression of Muslim minorities and Tibetans.

Israel's extremist right-wing regime has imposed one of the most brutal crackdowns on reporting in recent decades. Since the Hamas assaults of 7 October 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently denied journalists free access to Gaza, where international monitors accuse the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of genocide.

Chinese repression of minorities

Fact-checking for accuracy

Given the amount of rampant AI disinformation found on social media ranging from YouTube to TikTok and X, fact-checking teams from Le Monde and CNN to the New York Times regularly oversee content accuracy. (See Alexander Girardet article on why, from the business point of view, content is your start-up's secret intelligence weapon).

Diverse fact-checkers, such as BBC Verify, point out that up to 70 per cent of Trump’s speeches are often blatantly incorrect or poorly informed. And yet, all too often such claims go unchallenged quickly becoming part of the accepted ‘truth’.

Even the revered BBC has its problems. The organization's management was bitterly lambasted last July 2025 by over 400 journalists, including more than 100 BBC staffers, for holding back, even manipulating upfront coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in favour of Israel.

While other British news organizations have held back with their coverage of British government support for the Netanyahu regime, certain plucky journalistic initiatives such as the non-profit Declassified have persevered with highly detailed investigative reporting.

Killing journalists: a growing phenomenon

Quashing information by killing journalists

Whether in Burma (Myanmar), Sudan or Ukraine, war zones are highly vulnerable to information abuse especially if independent fact-finding reporters are refused access – or are considered targets as with Israel’s current military assault in Gaza. According to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), more than 210 Palestinian journalists have been killed.

“At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed,” RSF warned. Many of those killed worked professionally as news gatherers for major international press organizations. The IDF has undertaken similar deliberate killings against journalists in Yemen.

An officially tolerated silencing of journalism

As pointed out by RSF, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and others, without on-the-ground corroboration, politicians can deny, distract, or distort. The Netanyahu government only occasionally allows highly controlled embeds with the IDF into Gaza while consistently blocking free access to independent Israeli and international journalists operating on their own. The IDF's interception beyond Israeli territorial waters of vessels sailing to Gaza as part of the highly publicized Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) is another example of trying to control the narrative.

Plus ça change - echoes of a horrendous past

The latest such allegation is the September 2025 UN Commission of Inquiry, which characterized Israeli military actions in Gaza as ‘genocide’, a term directly inspired by the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany. An earlier commission similarly condemned Hamas as responsible for war crimes with its 7 October 2023 attacks.

Using ideology to confront criticism

While some Israeli press outlets such as Haaretz seek to report honestly, most mainstream coverage aligns with official narratives. Pro-government proponents condemn critics, including American and European Jews of being “antisemitic”. Ironically, this very deliberate association of criticism of the Israeli government as being the same as attacking Jews worldwide is only provoking even greater antisemiticism.

This is where background ‘authenticity’ reporting experience and knowledge remain crucial. Whether dealing with Afghanistan’s mujahideen or Taliban, Sri Lanka’s government forces and rebel Tamil Tigers, or Liberia’s warlord factions during their various brutal conflicts, the presence of reporters can make a difference.

Repressing reporters: A serious threat to press freedom that is becoming normal

When Killing the Messenger Becomes Policy

As demonstrated by the brutal killing of journalist Kamal Kashoggi at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2018, the deliberate eradication of reporters is nothing new. In Gaza in 2003, filmmaker James Miller, clearly marked PRESS, was deliberately shot by an Israeli soldier. The IDF Police later claimed “insufficient evidence” to indict the killer. In Sudan, Burma, and Ukraine, reporters continue to be targeted simply for bearing witness.

If quality journalism is to regain trust, it must hold itself to the highest standards of accuracy and fairness. But if governments are allowed to kill or intimidate reporters with impunity, then silence - and official narratives - will prevail.

Journalism as Democracy’s Last Line of Defence

Despite the onslaught, trusted reporting remains one of the last defences against authoritarianism and corruption. Investigative journalism still changes history, from the Pentagon Papers to France’s Mediapart exposing Nicolas Sarkozy’s Libyan dealings.

But such journalism requires survival. And survival depends on funding. It costs money to field foreign correspondents and to run newsrooms. The greatest threat today may not be repression but economics.

Until the 1990s, subscriptions and advertising supported robust newsrooms. The internet collapsed that model. Tech giants now dominate both advertising and access, freely circulating journalistic content without compensation. The result has been mass closures, dwindling resources, and shrinking audiences, especially among the young.

What is at stake is not just the survival of newsrooms but of democracy itself. Without trusted reporting, citizens cannot make informed decisions. Corruption flourishes in the dark.

Why Trusted Journalism Still Matters

As I reflect on four decades of reporting from Afghanistan to Haiti, from famine zones to political upheavals, one lesson stands out: accurate information saves lives and shapes history.

Whether exposing atrocities, warning of impending crises, or documenting corruption, journalism provides the knowledge societies need to respond.

Today, however, that crucial role is imperilled. Authoritarian regimes lie and restrict access. Tech companies from Meta to Amazon siphon off revenues. Young audiences drift into echo chambers. The convergence has created a perfect storm.

And yet, I remain convinced that straightforward and honest, professional reporting is not only possible but indispensable. It is the only viable antidote to disinformation and division. The question now is how to sustain it, how to rebuild trust, and how to engage the next generation before it is too late.

Part II of this series will explore: The Vanishing Newsroom - How the Collapse of Journalism’s Business Model Threatens Democracy while Part III will examine how we might renew journalism in an age of polarization and misinformation, and, equally important, how to bring young people back on board as a means of countering dis/misinformation in social media.

Edward Girardet is a Geneva-based foreign correspondent and author. He has reported conflict, humanitarian and environmental issues worldwide for more than 40 years.