Truth is the first casualty of war, and we’re losing the battle. On World Press Freedom Day, Professor Lizette Rabe explains why supporting professional journalism isn’t just important – it’s essential for our freedom.
The first casualty of war is the truth.
The Greek playwright Aeschylus is said to have said this more than two and a half millennia ago. And we know how the current conflicts drive mis- and disinformation in an already confused world.
Tomorrow is World Press Freedom Day. It is also the 35th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, the origin of World Press Freedom Day.
On 3 May 1991, in Windhoek, the last day of a seminar, journalists from 38 African countries drew up the declaration. It states, among other things, that the “establishment, maintenance and promotion of an independent, pluralistic and free press is essential for the development and promotion of democracy in a nation and for economic growth”.
Today, we interpret the word “press” to mean all professional mainstream media, whether on your TV, computer or mobile screen. Or perhaps even still on newsprint.
Importantly, the declaration also stated that we ensure we establish, maintain and promote media freedom.
In other words: Pay a few bucks towards professional journalism. For some mainstream media, you can even make a voluntary contribution of your own choosing.
READ | Journalism is the last line of defence against corruption, lies, and assassinations
After all, it costs money to collect, verify and distribute that information. And to pay media workers’ salaries at the end of the month. And to invest in the latest technology.
Yes, information should be free, but it cannot be gratis. Just as you cannot pick and not pay for your groceries.
And remember, especially in an age of AI, if you watch the news for free, you are the product.
Few voices, less truth
The Windhoek Declaration emphasises that the media must be independent and pluralistic.
Pluralistic means that there must be as many media voices as possible. Because somewhere among all those voices will be the true facts. And if one has it wrong – or is influenced by who pulls its strings in terms of politics or ownership – another will correct it.
We have just seen, yet again, how that ideal of plurality is being undermined.
The German media giant, the Axel Springer Group, after three years, and with failed offers from Abu Dhabi to the US, snatched up the British Telegraph Group. Even less plurality of voices.
And in South Africa? We have seen how our MultiChoice has become NoChoice and can no longer make its own decisions.
READ | Muzzling News24: Bid to gag Mafole murder stories ‘abusive behaviour’, court told
The current grip of global conflicts on humanity shows all too well how important media freedom is. Where there is conflict, techno-driven propaganda and misinformation rule. We experience it daily. Which TV channel or news website should we believe, since we do not know who is pulling the strings behind the scenes?
And that’s precisely why mainstream media must protect their credibility. Trust is the only means professional journalism can trade in. If you’ve lost your credibility, you can simply close your doors.
That’s why you need to be so vigilant about fake news and make sure your information comes from media that adheres to press codes.
But it is also where media workers must put their work ethic above all else.
News broke this week of alleged irregularities involving lottery funds handled by Makhudu Sefara, editor of the Sunday Times, who is now on special leave.
READ | Sanef denies ignoring lottery advertising allegations against editor
Of course, a person is innocent until proven guilty, and the alleged misappropriation of funds occurred long before he was appointed editor, but Sefara did the right thing by stepping down as chairperson of the South African Editors’ Forum to protect the organisation’s credibility.
The battlefield
The theme for this year’s World Press Freedom Day, with a conference from 4 to 5 May in Lusaka, Zambia, is Shaping a Future at Peace.
Delegates represent not only the media but also the digital world. The boundaries between journalism, technology, day-to-day civil space and human rights are becoming increasingly intertwined. The aim is not only to diagnose problems, but also, importantly, to find solutions to strengthen future information “ecosystems”.
This year’s theme is timely as we are in dire need of a future at peace. The US-Israeli war on Iran dominates the news agenda. This pushed the horror of the Russian invasion into Ukraine down the news agenda, while the atrocities of the civil war in Sudan barely make the news. Because, well, Africa.
The German newspaper Die Zeit reports that in 2025, a record $2.89 billion was spent on armaments. The result of all the conflicts and geopolitical tensions. This year it will be much higher.
Over the past two decades, digitisation has shredded traditional media business models. This includes The Washington Post and your local newspaper. The irony is that the Post’s owner, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (one of the “tech-bros” in the front row at Donald Trump’s inauguration), has an increasingly tight stranglehold on editorial freedom. Bezos recently instituted a huge number of layoffs while cutting the publication’s international reporting. These actions leave a bitter irony for the Post, whose slogan is: “Democracy dies in darkness”.
READ | US press freedom declines as result of Donald Trump’s ‘authoritarian shift in government’ – RSF
“DEATH TO THE DEVIL” was the banner headline on the Murdoch media empire’s New York Post after the assassination of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But hardly a word was spoken after an attack on an Iranian girls’ school in which at least 175 people died, most of them young girls. No, wait. On Murdoch’s pro-Trump Fox channel, a retired general termed it a “glitch”.
All this while US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth decided during a church service that it was okay to use the Bible to criticise the media and described reporters as opponents of Christ – in fact, as Pharisees.
Hegseth, a member of the Christian Nationalist Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, also held prayer meetings in his Ministry of War, as the Department of Defence has been renamed.
The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance has found that global media freedom has declined the most over the past half-century. Even the Associated Press news service was kicked out of the White House for merely refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as Trump’s newly delusional “Gulf of America”.
Record year for repression
This year has already been a deadly one for journalists and media workers. Since January, seven journalists have died (almost two a month), and 440 journalists and 34 media workers are in detention.
Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) 2026 report makes for grim reading.
“In 25 years, the average score of all 180 countries and territories surveyed in the index has never been so low,” it reads. For the first time in the index’s history, RSF states that “more than half the world’s countries now fall into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ categories for press freedom”.
The US has fallen seven places as “journalism is being asphyxiated by hostile political discourse towards reporters”.
But there was also a victory when RSF won a case proving that Trump’s layoffs of 500 Voice of America journalists were unconstitutional and illegal.
READ | Press freedom ‘has never been so low’ and ‘impunity is rife’ warns media watchdog
South Africa finds itself in a slightly better position, however, “journalists have often been subjected to verbal attacks from political leaders and activists”, RSF notes.
In a time of authoritarianism, Trumpism, “techno-fascism”, plus a host of other -isms, it is important that we do our part to preserve media freedom and not allow algorithms to let us tumble down rabbit holes of misinformation.
The famous American journalist Walter Cronkite said: “Freedom of the press is not only essential to a democracy – it is democracy.”
In the words of the third American president, Thomas Jefferson: “If I had to choose between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I would without hesitation choose the latter.”
Celebrate Press Freedom Day. It’s all about your freedom.
– Lizette Rabe is professor emeritus at Stellenbosch University.
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