Freedom of press at its lowest in 50 years: Study

Press freedoms declined in 43 countries across all continents, including 15 in Africa and 15 in Europe

Press freedoms worldwide have declined significantly over the past five years to hit their lowest level in 50 years, a report by a democracy think tank showed Thursday.

Afghanistan, Burkina Faso and Myanmar -- already among the poorest performers in press freedoms -- posted the biggest falls, the report by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said.

The fourth-biggest drop was in South Korea, it added, citing "a spike in defamation cases initiated by the government and its political allies against journalists, and raids on journalists' residences".

"The current state of democracy in the world is concerning," IDEA secretary general Kevin Casas-Zamora, secretary general told AFP.

More than half of countries in the world (54 percent), registered a drop in one of the five key democracy indicators between 2019 and 2024, the report said.

"The most important finding in our report is the very acute deterioration in press freedom around the world," Casas-Zamora said.

Between 2019 and 2024, it saw "the biggest drop over the past 50 years".

"We've never seen such an acute deterioration in a key indicator of democratic health," he said.

Press freedoms declined in 43 countries across all continents, including 15 in Africa and 15 in Europe.

"There's a toxic brew that is coming together, which involves, on the one hand, heavy-handed interventions on the part of governments," some of them "legacies of what happened during the pandemic".

On the other hand, "you have the very negative impact of disinformation, some of which is real disinformation and some of which is used as a pretext by governments to clamp down on press freedoms".

The think tank is concerned about the consolidation of traditional media worldwide, as well as the "disappearance in many countries of local media which plays a very important role in supporting a democratic debate", Casas-Zamora said.

The report only covers the period 2019 to 2024 and does not include the first effects of US President Donald Trump's return to the White House in January.

But "some of the things that we saw during the election at the end of last year and in the first few months of 2025 are fairly disturbing", Casas-Zamora said.

"Since what happens in the US has this ability to go global, this does not bode well for democracy globally," he added.