Kathmandu, Dec 31: The Freedom Forum, a non-governmental independent watch group of Nepal, has stated that the economic downturn took a toll on Nepali media, threatening its sustainability.
Releasing a detailed survey report on Sunday, the last day of 2023, Freedom Forum has further said the slump in advertisement market, shifting advertisements to digital platform and Apps, indifference of government and parliament to law and policy reform, massive retrenchment at media houses, continued intimidation to journalists, muddled management of social media, and spread of mis- and disinformation polluting information ecosystem featured significantly during the past one year, 2023.
“At present, Nepali media is facing a ‘sink or swim condition’. How it would be lifted out of crisis and who contributes to it needs serious deliberation. At any cost, Nepali media industry needs immediate rescue with favorable legal/policy environment and financial support so that press freedoms would be survived, protected and promoted,” the survey stated.
Major highlights
- Freedom Forum recorded a total of 52 incidents of press freedom violations from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.
- 59 media persons were directly affected, among which 8% are female and 92% are male.
- The yearly trend for the last ten years shows that this year observed slight surge of press freedom violations than the previous year, 2022.
- Five cases of long pending impunity have been cleared with final verdict from the courts. Convicts of cases—Uma Singh, Birendra Sah and Arun Singhaniya and Yadav Poudel —
were arrested and sentenced to jail.
Recommendations
i. Journalists safety
– Incidents of press freedom violations should be properly investigated and prosecuted to reduce impunity and ensure safe environment for free media.
– The government agencies and NHRC’s safety mechanism should be concerned more on investigative journalists and public interest reporters.
– Nepali media houses must respect labor rights’and professional sustainability of the working journalists.
– The increasing trend of closure of media houses and experienced journalists’ quitting profession is a worrying trend so, for the sustainability of professional journalism viable alternative media platform is needed. Therefore, the government and development partners of the country should pay attention for the support of alternative media.
– Boosting advertisement industry for mainstream media is essential. Collaboration from private sector and government is imperative to create advertisements. Government advertisements should be fairly and proportionally distributed to all media.
ii. Impunity
- The more inaction on transitional justice process, the more woes to victim journalists’ families and their wait for justice. So, the transitional justice mechanism should be more functional to solve the impunity related issues in line with international standard of transitional justice.
- Remaining cases of slain journalists should be investigated and prosecuted by criminal justice agencies and adjudicated by the independent judiciary at the earliest.
iii. Law and policy
– Prevailing inaction and uncertainty in media policy and law needs immediate cease.
– Proposed media-related bills at the federal level should be passed by the parliament and enforced properly so that it will pave way for the sub-national law and policy initiatives in right track.
– Majority laws related to media at federal and provincial levels are being drafted as criminal law which is wrong. Media law must be a civil law.
iv. Digital space
– Proper initiatives should be taken with inputs from multi-stakeholders to regulate social media so that freedom of expression and journalists’ rights on cyber space would be protected and promoted.
– Blanket approach to manage social network has curtailed citizen’s freedom of expression, which must be ceased.
– Capacity enhancement of journalists on digital technology including AI in journalism practices is necessary to make them more competitive and familiar with contextual changes and challenges.
– Massive digital literacy is essential to make social media and other digital space safe.
– Study, research and assessment bears equal relevance to understand impact of AI in Nepali media.
– Digital and cyberspace related law and policy must ensure rights guaranteed by the constitution and international law so that human rights friendly cyber laws would be in practice. Similarly, accountability of digital platform/tech companies towards citizen’s freedoms must be ensured.
– It is urgent to stop misuse of different authorities like Press Council Nepal and other agencies to stop suppression of online freedom
– The concerned authority should take action against online harassment and threats targeted to female journalists.
Full Text
Media report 2023 Freedom Forum
