India’s proposed AI copyright framework risks turning independent journalism into a pooled data resource, undermining the subscription-based models that sustain it. At a moment of political and economic fragility, the struggle over AI licensing is ultimately a struggle over who controls, values, and profits from journalistic work.

Independent journalism no longer exists as a functioning practice inside Chechnya. What remains is a profession rebuilt in exile, forced to operate at a distance from the very place it is meant to cover.

In Gaza, journalism becomes inseparable from the life it documents: reporting continues not from a distance, but from within the same fear, grief, and instability it tries to record.

From the very first moment of the genocidal war waged by Israel on Gaza, Al Jazeera correspondent Hisham Zaqout has been a witness to hunger, devastation, war crimes, and the assassination of his colleagues in the field. It is a battle for survival and documentation, one that goes beyond mere coverage and daily reporting.

Cameroon’s 2025 presidential election exposed a troubling paradox: a nation voting under the watchful eye of power, while its press remained silenced. From the arrest of a teenage reporter to bans on political debate and digital manipulation, freedom of expression is under siege, and journalism is on trial.

As a journalist, reporting on the murder of my father meant answering questions about my own position as an objective observer.

African journalists who expose corruption and power now face a brutal mix of arrests, torture, digital surveillance, and lawsuits meant to drain their resources and silence them. From Ethiopia, Nigeria, Malawi, Benin, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya to exile in Canada, reporting the truth has become an act of personal survival as much as public service.

Migration stories don’t become real until you meet people in the journey: the carpenter carrying photos of his fantasy coffins, or the Libyan city worker burying the forgotten dead, or the Tatar woman watching her livelihood collapse at a militarised border. Following these surprising human threads is the only way journalism can cut through collective exhaustion and make readers confront a crisis they’ve been trained to ignore.

A few weeks ago, Carla Bruni, wife of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, was seen removing the Mediapart logo from view. The moment became a symbol of a major victory for investigative journalism, after the platform exposed Gaddafi’s financing of Sarkozy’s election campaign, leading to his prison conviction. In this article, Edwy Plenel, founder of Mediapart and one of the most prominent figures in global investigative journalism, reflects on a central question: what does it mean to be an investigative journalist today?

She was arrested, tortured, nearly raped, threatened with death, and subjected to degrading abuse. Her brother was brutally mistreated in an effort to locate her. In the end, her family had to pay a ransom to secure her release. She sought refuge abroad, but eventually returned to Sudan to continue documenting the war’s toll, particularly in El Fasher, a city now under siege. This is the harrowing account of a Sudanese journalist detained and tortured by the Rapid Support Forces.

In Chiapas, independent journalists risk their lives to document resistance, preserve Indigenous memory, and challenge state and cartel violence. From Zapatista films to grassroots radio, media becomes a weapon for dignity, truth, and survival.

Palestinian journalists in the West Bank face extreme physical danger, psychological trauma, and systemic targeting under Israeli occupation, yet continue to report with resilience, amplifying the voices of their people despite global indifference and media bias.

With a 200-year history, Urdu newspapers in India are now facing a silent death—trapped in a cycle of decline where circulation has fallen by nearly 25%, advertising is absent, and government support is scarce. What vanishes is more than print: it is the erosion of a cultural and political lifeline that once bound Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in common debates and carried the voices of the marginalised into India’s public sphere.

In Kashmir, mounting censorship, political pressure, and shrinking job prospects are forcing a generation of aspiring journalists to abandon the profession, many before they even get the chance to begin, leaving behind a media landscape stripped of dissent, debate, and independent voices.

The collapse of the media industry in Sudan has subjected journalists to physical threats, legal and professional challenges, with no functioning legal system to investigate crimes committed against the press.