Press group warns politicians’ attacks on press increasing threats to reporters

Press freedom group Reporters without Borders warned in a report published Thursday that politicians’ attacks on the media have resulted in hostile climate for reporters. 

“The hostility towards journalists expressed by political leaders in many countries has incited increasingly serious and frequent acts of violence that have fueled an unprecedented level of fear and danger for journalists,” the report said. 

It adds that threats are now “occupational hazards” for journalists in some countries, particularly noting that supporters of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro have targeted media both physically and online. {mosads}

The report also classified the U.S. media climate as “problematic” attributing the classification to “an increasingly hostile climate that goes beyond Donald Trump’s comments.”

“Never before have US journalists been subjected to so many death threats or turned so often to private security firms for protection,” the report said. 

The U.S. has fallen three places in Reporters without Borders’s World Press Freedom Index ranking, now coming in 48th out of 180 countries surveyed. 

The group annually publishes the rankings to measure media freedom.