Press freedom goes hand-in-hand with democracy. If journalism is to help the public participate in civic debate, journalists need to report without government intrusion. This includes reporting on the government itself, often referred to as the “watchdog role.” At the same time, governments can and often do help protect the freedom and independence of the news media both in judicial cases and provide financial support. There exists a significant tension, then, in news media reliance on the body of government that upholds its freedom. 

Successful management of that tension relies on the government’s foundational belief in the importance of an independent news media — even if it does not always serve their interests. 

Unfortunately, belief in that fundamental value has shown increasing signs of erosion. Government interference in the news is on the rise worldwide, with even well-intentioned laws sometimes weaponized against journalists. In 2024 alone, governments have spied on journalists, imprisoned them and even failed to hold their killers accountable. But 2024 also saw the passage of the EU’s European Media Freedom Act, a law that seeks to protect media independence and the right to information. 

This survey explored journalists’ general views on the role of governments in the news media dynamics. Our international pool of respondents included journalists from three types of regimes:

• Liberal democracies have free and fair elections, free and independent media, clear checks and balances on power, rule of law, and civil liberties.
• Electoral democracies have free and fair elections and largely free media but may lack some of the three latter protections.
• Autocracies largely lack freedom of expression, including media freedom.

We wanted to understand how journalists feel about the relationship between the press and the government — both overall and within each regime type. 

The findings reveal that few journalists anywhere (9%) see positive impacts of government intervention. About half (54%) see negative impacts from government involvement, although journalists in liberal democracies (25%) are less likely to see negative impacts than journalists in other types of regimes (67-70%). Half of journalists surveyed have experienced some form of government overreach in the last year. Once again, journalists in liberal democracies (29%) are much less likely than journalists elsewhere (56-66%) to note such experiences. And across regime types, journalists are uncomfortable with governmental attempts to define the boundaries of either the profession or its practitioners.

Relationships with the government are getting attention, especially in autocracies

In a question about how news organizations prioritize seven issues of concern, relationships with the government falls right in the middle. About one third (30%) of the journalists who took our survey say that relationships with the government are getting a great deal of attention at their news organizations, and another third (33%) say they are getting a fair amount of attention.

How much attention is given to relationships with the government differs when broken down by regime type.¹ In general, the less democratic the country, the more journalists say that these relations are getting a great deal of attention. Journalists working in autocracies and electoral democracies are about twice as likely as those living in liberal democracies to say that their organizations are paying a great deal of attention to relationships with the government. 

Few journalists see positive impacts of government

Across regime types, about one-in-ten journalists say the government in their country offers important support for journalism.

All the same, journalists in liberal democracies are less concerned about government involvement than those in the other regime types. Strong majorities (67-70%) of surveyed journalists in electoral democracies and autocracies say the government seeks to have too much control over their journalism, while journalists in liberal democracies mostly (62%) do not feel much government involvement either way.

Many journalists are directly experiencing government overreach

For many of the journalists who took our survey, concerns about government control are borne out by direct experience, a finding that tracks with other data indicating government interference is on the rise worldwide.

Roughly a third (34%) of respondents say they have received direct complaints from their government within the past year, and about as many (29%) say they have been denied access to official events, hampering their ability to report. About two-in-ten (21%) have experienced direct government censorship, while 5% said they have experienced the most extreme level of control we asked about: detention or imprisonment. All told, half of journalists answering these questions experienced at least one of these. Less than one-in-three (29%) journalists in liberal democracies reported government intrusion, while a majority (56-66%) of those in other regime types did.

In keeping with the levels of concern described above, there are big differences by regime type for all of these issues.

Journalists do not want government to define the profession or its practitioners

Policies that impact journalism, whether seeking to support it or seeking to constrain it, need to define who and what they cover. Even well-intended laws that define journalism or journalists can — and have been — used to empower governments that seek to control or censor the press. For example, in Egypt and India, permitting laws have been used to suppress reporting that is critical of the government, especially by foreign reporters.

Strong majorities of journalists — at least three-in-four — are against the government's involvement in defining either journalism or journalists. This is the case across regions and regime types.

Continue reading:

• Overview
• Definitions: Journalists easily articulate their distinct role in society but do not think the public can
• Technology: Journalists believe technology is improving their work, but they are less sure about AI
• Security: One-in-three journalists regularly face serious risks, but their level of preparedness varies; most want to talk about it
• About this study

Read CNTI’s companion report based on surveys with representative publics in four countries.

1. In this section, we use regime type rather than region as our main form of geographical distinction because it is more relevant to the questions we asked. See "About this study" for more about why. ↩︎