A truck driver picks up humanitarian aid designated for Gaza, as reporters tour the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing where aid is awaiting pickup, on Dec. 19, 2024.Ohad Zwigenberg/The Associated Press
Aloa Alota holds a PhD in media studies from Western University and is a researcher affiliated with the Centre for Media and Development Research in Africa, based in London, Ont.
At the height of Nigeria’s June 12 political crisis in the 1990s, journalist Kunle Ajibade was pressured by state security agents to reveal the source of a story that the military regime found offensive. He refused, invoking a core principle of journalism: the protection of confidential sources. His interrogator was unmoved. “The only way to stop falsehood,” he insisted, “is to get rid of those misinforming the press.” Mr. Ajibade was later sentenced to life imprisonment.
In such moments, the stakes of press freedom are unmistakable. Journalistic autonomy is not an abstract ideal but a lived risk – one that can carry severe personal consequences. What is less obvious is that press freedom, even in stable democracies, is not as secure as it appears. It is often imagined as something guaranteed by democratic institutions. In practice, however, it remains a struggle: one that unfolds within newsrooms, between journalists and power – the most visible form – and even among journalists themselves.
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From constitutional protections such as the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to the Windhoek Declaration, press freedom is often framed as a foundational democratic principle. This lineage can be traced back to the world’s first constitutional press freedom law – the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 – and the later elevation of the press as the “Fourth Estate.” Together, these developments have reinforced the idea that journalistic autonomy is secure in democratic societies. Yet journalism’s relationship with power has always been ambivalent. Journalists rely on powerful institutions as sources of information and, in many cases, as economic lifelines through advertising or ownership structures. At the same time, they are tasked with scrutinizing those same institutions. This tension does not disappear in stable democracies; it simply becomes less visible.
Mr. Ajibade’s case was not isolated. Around the same period, the top editors of Newswatch newsmagazine – Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed – were detained after publishing an interview with a military insider critical of the regime. Such crackdowns were part of a broader martial effort to bully the press into toeing the line.
Yet the story is more complicated than repression alone suggests. Both TheNEWS (where Mr. Ajibade served as a senior editor) and Newswatch shared a common institutional history, having emerged in part from struggles over journalistic autonomy with a media empire tied to political power – the Concord Media Group owned by the late Chief Moshood Abiola, who was then the presumed winner of the 1993 election, which the military annulled, precipitating a prolonged political crisis. Both publications opposed the annulment of the 1993 election results and supported democratic rule.
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They nonetheless responded differently to the crisis. Newswatch largely adhered to the conventions of journalistic objectivity, emphasizing restraint and neutrality. TheNEWS, by contrast, adopted a more openly advocacy-driven stance, framing its journalism as a necessary response to political abnormality. Despite these differences, both were regarded as credible and courageous journalistic institutions.
These differences suggest that journalistic autonomy is not simply determined by external pressure but shaped by internal judgment about professional responsibility. Significantly, both publications were journalist-led, with minimal reliance on external funders. Yet within this shared structure of autonomy, they arrived at different understandings of what responsible journalism required in a moment of political crisis. If journalistic autonomy could produce divergent outcomes even under extreme political pressure, what does that reveal about how it operates in societies where constraints are less visible?
Recent developments in the United States offer a useful illustration. Despite strong constitutional protections, journalists operate within an environment shaped by heightened political polarization, economic pressures and competition for attention. Editorial decisions – what to emphasize, what to downplay, how to frame contentious issues – are often made within these constraints. The result is not the absence of press freedom but its continual negotiation in less visible forms.
The lesson from fragile media systems is not simply that press freedom can be suppressed. It is that journalistic autonomy is never absolute. It is negotiated – within institutions, among professionals and in constant relation to power: political, economic, cultural. What appears as stability in stable democratic contexts may, in part, be an effect of this negotiation rather than evidence of its resolution.
In places where the risks are stark, the struggle over press freedom is easier to see. Journalists may face imprisonment, intimidation or worse for adhering to professional principles. In more stable democracies, the costs are rarely so visible. Yet the underlying tensions remain.
The assumption that press freedom is securely guaranteed can obscure the conditions under which it is continually produced – and sometimes compromised. The lesson is that journalistic autonomy is not secured by constitutional guarantees, ownership structures, or professional norms alone. It emerges from the interplay of institutional conditions, professional integrity and the solidarities that enable journalists to withstand pressure. Strengthening journalism therefore requires more than just safeguarding institutions; it also depends on cultivating the professional dispositions that allow journalists to resist pressure when it matters most. Recognizing this does not diminish the value of democratic institutions. Rather, it underscores the need to remain attentive to how journalistic autonomy is practised, defended and, at times, redefined from within.
The experience of fragile media systems does not simply warn what can be lost. It offers a clearer view of what has always been at stake.