Off the record: the global assault on press freedom

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  The Economist Hi there, it's Jason Palmer here,

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  co-host of The Intelligence, our daily news and current affairs podcast.

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  This is Editor's Picks.

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  You're about to hear an article from the latest edition of The Economist, read aloud.

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  Enjoy!

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  Journalists can be infuriating.

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  They simplify, they exaggerate, they sometimes get things wrong.

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  They are disproportionately university-educated, middle-class, and a bit left-wing,

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  so their attitudes often jar with the rest of the population.

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  When they act unethically, for example,

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  when the BBC's Panorama programme aired clips of President Donald Trump that had been spliced together in a misleading manner,

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  people are rightly outraged.

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  Trust in the news media has declined across the rich world,

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  especially since the advent of social media allowed errors in reporting to be more widely reviled.

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  So some people may not care much when they hear that journalism is in trouble,

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  yet it is in their interest to care.

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  Press freedom is in retreat worldwide.

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  Since 2014, the global score on an index devised by Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, a watchdog,

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  has deteriorated from no worse than it is in America today to as grim as it is in Serbia,

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  where journalists covering anti-corruption protests are routinely beaten by police.

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