Reason.com By J.D. TUCCILLEÂ
“Governments realize that they are in an existential battle over who controls information.”
It’s no secret that governments worldwide are increasingly hostile to scrutiny of their conduct. But, at a moment when too many media outlets see their role as working with the state to reinforce official narratives, one advocate of press freedom reminds us that the struggle isn’t over the “disinformation” and “misinformation” called out by opportunistic politicians, it’s over control of information. Will people be free in the future to decide for themselves what’s truth and what’s BS? Or will we be spoon-fed whatever the powers-that-be endorse?
“Governments realize that they are in an existential battle over who controls information, who controls the narrative, and they are waging a frontal assault against independent journalism around the world,” Joel Simon, the exiting head of the Committee to Protects Journalists (CPJ), told CNN’s Brian Stelter.
“This is the information age, and we are in a kind of millennial battle over who controls information,” he added. “Who controls it? That’s the power struggle. And so, governments recognizeârepressive governments, but even democratic governmentsâthat this is an essential tool that they need to maintain power and journalists are their adversaries.”
