Words matter for supporting media freedom

In this guest article, Martin Scott, Professor of Media and Global Development at the University of East Anglia, and Mel Bunce, Professor of International Journalism and Politics at City St George’s, University of London, share findings of their latest research on the Media Freedom Coalition, a governmental partnership working together to advocate for media freedom at home and abroad.

In 2025, international support for media freedom has been seriously undermined by the actions of the Trump administration.

Most obviously, hundreds of independent media outlets have suffered substantial losses of funding due to the sweeping cuts to U.S. foreign aid. Totalling an average of around $130 million per year, US aid had made up just over one fifth of all government funding to public interest journalism in recent years. The drastic cuts to this budget in 2025 have already impacted hundreds of news outlets—including in countries where journalism is chronically underfunded and under attack.

More broadly, rhetorical attacks on journalists and media support organisations, and Trump’s executive order to stop funding for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) have reversed decades of U.S. leadership in promoting democratic values, the rule of law and media freedom as important international norms. This has created a more permissive environment for governments to suppress dissenting voices and control information.

In this context, it is more important than ever that all remaining international support for media freedom is as effective as possible. 

In which case, what role should multilateral diplomatic initiatives—like the Media Freedom Coalition (MFC)—play in future? The MFC is a partnership of 51 governments working collaboratively to promote media freedom through advocacy, diplomatic interventions, international events, and funding.

International civil society organisations have often been very critical of such high level, diplomacy-focussed initiatives, accusingthem of failing to "turn words into action" and of taking "no credible action . . . to protect journalists" in Gazaand elsewhere. 

For example, in a recent review of the impact of the MFC's joint government statements, independent media development researcher Dr Aida Al-Kaisy describes how representatives of international organisations tend to view them as a relatively ineffective diplomatic tool and, in some cases, 'as performative at best'.

But what do journalists themselves think of multilateral diplomatic initiatives like the MFC?

Their voices are often missing from debates about the design, focus, and effectiveness of such initiatives. This absence is highly problematic because media support initiatives are more effective when they fully engage with the views, cultures, and priorities of the stakeholders they seek to assist. 

To address this question, we interviewed 37 journalists in Sudan and the Philippines—and 50 wider stakeholders in these two countries—about their perspectives on the MFC, during its first two years (2020–2021). The results, which have recently been published in full in the International Journal of Communication, suggest that words do matter when it comes to international support for media freedom. 

Scepticism and simplicity

We found that very few journalists in Sudan and the Philippines had heard of the MFC. As one Sudanese journalist put it, "I am the editor of one of the biggest papers in the country, but I have [been given] no information about this. No communication at all".

Furthermore, journalists in both countries were generally very sceptical that the MFC would make a difference, describing it as a "drop in the ocean" and a "baby step" towards supporting media freedom. However, this was largely because of other influential factors, rather than direct criticisms of the MFC itself. As one journalist in the Philippines told us, "it's not only Duterte's government that has caused the problems . . . It's the media moguls [and] some of their employment practices".

We also found that the complex, dynamic, and contested understandings of media freedom held by journalists in Sudan and the Philippines contrasted starkly with the MFC's relatively narrow, absolute, and state-centric approach. In the Philippines, for example, the MFC focussed largely on legal threats and how they impacted individual journalists such as Maria Ressa.

However, the journalists we interviewed highlighted a far wider range of threats to media freedom, such as violence, a lack of funding, and bureaucratic barriers. As one journalist put it, "we have multiple layers of shit".

Support and solidarity 

However, despite their scepticism about its impacts, most journalists we interviewed were still very supportive of the MFC’s approach—describing it as "well appreciated", and "a much-welcome helping hand".

Two reasons were consistently given for this. 

First, journalists in both countries felt that the MFC could emphasize the importance of media freedom to their governments far more effectively than domestic actors. More generally, the journalists hoped the MFC's discourse would help to strengthen international norms around media freedom. This might lead their respective governments to "start getting nervous", "think twice", "hold back", or become "more cautious . . . when attacking media". 

Second, they said the MFC provided an important "morale boost", describing its public statements as giving them "hope", "solidarity", and "encouragement". This stemmed from the MFC's validation of the very idea of media freedom, or its "willing[ness] to stand up for media freedom . . . [when] not too many organizations [were]". As one journalist explained, "the hardest thing for any embattled sector is to feel that you are alone especially if you are up against the powers that be".

What does this mean for international advocacy campaigns? 

These findings suggest that international advocacy campaigns that are more style than substance should not necessarily be dismissed as "empty rhetoric". Furthermore, they suggest that practical interventions designed to directly assist journalists are not inherently more valuable than narrative or diplomatic interventions, as is often assumed by international civil society actors. Although ideally interventions would do both: with diplomatic and development interventions working hand in hand. 

These findings also raise three issues that must be considered in the design and evaluation of international efforts to support media freedom.

First, if international advocacy campaigns can legitimately claim to have an impact while hardly existing on the ground, with relatively low levels of in-country engagement and disconnected understandings of media freedom, it becomes extremely difficult to hold them accountable to their commitments. This makes it particularly important that all campaigns have a clear theory of change as well as robust monitoring and accountability mechanisms built into their design.

Second, narrative interventions from international campaigns may have adverse, unintended consequences if they are disconnected from the communities they aim to support. For example, by celebrating individual "heroes" or figureheads of media freedom, who might not necessarily represent local realities, strategic narratives may inadvertently promote divisivenesswithin the wider media industry or lead to these actors being stigmatized domestically. 

Finally, while the journalists we interviewed may have broadly welcomed the MFC’s approach, Dr Tamsin Mitchell's recent book, 'Human Rights, Impunity and Anti-Press Violence' reminds us that the usefulness of international strategies to support journalists is heavily dependent on contextual factors including government type, time period, and levels of violence and impunity.

Given this, it is a welcome development that, since 2021, the MFC's approach has evolved to include a much greater focus on actions taken by MFC member embassies, which can be more tailored to individual country contexts.

Martin Scott is a Professor of Media and Global Development at the University of East Anglia, UK. He studies media freedom; international journalism; media influence on aid; humanitarian news; and media capture. His publications include Capturing News, Capturing Democracy (2024), Humanitarian Journalists (2022), Media and Development (2014) and From Entertainment to Citizenship (2014).

Mel Bunce is Professor of International Journalism and Politics at City St George’s, University of London. Her research explores international reporting, threats to media freedom, and the relationship between journalism and democracy. Her publications include Capturing News, Capturing Democracy (2024), Humanitarian Journalists (2022), The Broken Estate (2019) and Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century (2016).

DW Akademie is currently member of the Media Freedom Coalition's Consultative Network, a MFC panel comprised of different civil society organizations.