Media Freedom Coalition and the UK’s actions to ensure the safety and security of journalists worldwide

Approximate read time: 15 minutes 

On 24 April 2025, the House of Lords is scheduled to debate the following motion: 

Baroness Mobarik (Conservative) to ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking, as a member of the Media Freedom Coalition, to ensure the safety and security of journalists and media workers worldwide. 

1. Media Freedom Coalition 

1.1 Aims and activities of the Media Freedom Coalition 

The Media Freedom Coalition (MFC) is a partnership of countries that advocate for global media freedom.^[1] The MFC also promotes the safety of journalists and media workers and aims to hold to account those who “harm journalists and severely restrict them from doing their job”. The MFC’s activities include advocacy, diplomatic interventions, encouraging and supporting legal reforms, international events, and funding media freedom initiatives. 

All member countries sign the coalition’s ‘global pledge’, which commits them to:^[2] 

• speaking out and taking action together, through a Media Freedom Coalition 

• harnessing the power of members’ diplomatic networks 

• reinforcing international initiatives to champion media freedom 

• meeting annually to renew commitments and address emerging threats and opportunities 

The MFC was established in 2019 and has 50 members. These include all the members of the G7: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US. They also include countries from the rest of the world that both rank highly on the ‘Press freedom index’ of the non-governmental organisation Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), such as Norway, and those that rank near the bottom, such as Honduras.^[3] The MFC has twice expelled countries from the coalition when it has judged that they were not adhering to the pledge: Afghanistan in 2022 and Sudan in 2023.^[4]  

In its statement following its first meeting, in January 2020, the MFC said it would: 

• take action on individual cases by coordinating efforts to raise specific cases where journalists and media workers, or media organisations, have come under threat, to encourage respect for fair trial guarantees and reduce cases of impunity for crimes against them 

• speak out publicly through collective statements, including in international fora, and making collective diplomatic approaches and lobbying 

• reinforce the work of other media freedom initiatives and organisations—including UNESCO, OHCHR [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights], international rapporteurs, regional representatives, the newly established ‘Global media defence fund’ and the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom—to support their recommendations on how to improve protections for the media, as appropriate, and implementation [of] the ‘UN plan of action on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity [PDF download]’ 

• provide support and co-operation with organisations advocating for media freedom and the safety of journalists^[5] 

The MFC’s actions to date include: 

• creating and supporting a network of MFC country embassies to monitor and support press freedom in their host country^[6] 

• encouraging member countries to adopt and reform policies and legislation to enable media freedom in their own countries, guided by the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom^[7] 

• holding events and conferences to discuss emerging threats and opportunities and make commitments to advance media freedom^[8]  

• initiating and supporting the ‘Global media defence fund’, administered by UNESCO, which has provided funding to relevant projects supporting journalists, including in the investigation of crimes and strategic litigation^[9] 

1.2 UK support 

The UK was one of the co-founders of the MFC.^[10] The other co-founder was Canada. The UK is one of the three funders of the MFC’s secretariat, along with the governments of Canada and Germany.^[11] The secretariat is hosted by the Thompson Reuters Foundation, the corporate foundation of the news and information company Thomson Reuters. In 2022, the then government announced funding of “up to £600,000” to further the work of the coalition through funding for the secretariat.^[12] 

In 2022 the UK stepped down as a co-chair of the MFC.^[13] Since then, the UK has continued to support its work. In addition to funding for the secretariat, the UK has:^[14] 

• signed MFC statements concerning media freedom in Russia, Hong Kong, and in the context of the Israel/Gaza conflict 

• convened ambassadors of MFC member countries at the British embassy in Tehran to discuss and commit to action concerning the current situation in Iran  

• contributed to the MFC’s statement marking the 2023 ‘UN international day to end impunity for crimes against journalists’, focussing on the importance of independent journalism and media in elections 

2. Media freedom worldwide 

2.1 Numbers of journalists killed 

The UN and RSF present different figures for the number of journalists killed in connection with their work. According to UNESCO, the number of journalists killed “in the line of duty” in 2024 was 68, although some additional cases were still being verified at the time of publication.^[15] This represents a decrease since 2023 (74) and 2022 (88). However, RSF found that 54 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024 “on the job or in connection with their work”.^[16] This was also a decrease compared to its numbers for 2023 and 2022; however, the decrease was small (1) compared to 2023, when it found that 55 journalists were killed.  

The proportion of journalists killed in conflict zones increased in 2024.^[17] UNESCO states that of the 68 journalists killed worldwide in 2024, 42 of those were killed in countries in conflict.^[18] RSF reports that the highest number of journalists killed in one place in 2024 was in Gaza, with “one third of all journalists killed worldwide”, at 18.^[19] UNESCO also found that 18 deaths took place in Palestine in 2024.^[20] RSF and UNESCO produced different figures for the number of killings that happened in Ukraine in 2024, with RSF putting the number at two and UNESCO at four.^[21]  

Concerning longer-term trends, the UN found a sharp increase between 2019 to 2021 and 2022, while RSF reported a smaller increase and found that deaths were significantly higher in 2022 compared with 2019. The UN secretary-general’s report on the safety of journalists and media workers worldwide stated that in 2022, 87 journalists and media workers were killed around the world.^[22] It said this was an increase compared to 58 killings per year on average in the period 2019 to 2021.^[23] The report found that while various factors contributed to this trend, many of the threats and attacks were exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, while RSF agreed on the approximate number of killings per year between 2019 and 2021 (57), it found there were 63 in 2022, significantly fewer than that reported by the UN.^[24]  

2.2 Impunity 

Many organisations argue that a major threat to journalists’ safety and security is that killings often go unpunished. UNESCO reported that in 2024 the rate of impunity for the killing of journalists was 85 percent.^[25] There has been a general downward trend since 2012: it was 95 percent in 2012, 89 percent in 2018 and 86 percent in 2022. The average time it takes for a case to be resolved is four years.^[26]  

UNESCO asks governments for information on the judicial status of killings of journalists. According to these responses, as at July 2024, 210 cases since 2006 had been resolved and 947 cases were ongoing or unresolved.^[27]  

2.3 Detention 

Many journalists are detained worldwide, and it is argued that this is frequently as a result of their legitimate work.^[28] RSF’s ‘2024 round-up’ states that as at 1 December 2024, 550 journalists were detained around the world, with 298 provisional detentions, 244 imprisonments (including nine life sentences) and eight house arrests.^[29] The largest number of detentions was in China, at 124. The next highest was in Myanmar, with 61. In addition, there were 55 journalists held hostage and 95 missing. The highest number of hostages held were by Islamic State and the country with the highest number of missing journalists was Mexico. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-governmental organisation, cites a lower number. It says there were 361 journalists “behind bars” as at 1 December 2024, also stating that the highest number was in China.^[30] The CPJ states that “pervasive censorship in China makes it notoriously difficult to determine the exact number of journalists jailed there”. 

2.4 Legal intimidation 

There has been increasing use worldwide of legal measures aimed at reducing journalists’ freedom, including in western Europe and the US. This includes defamation, criminal cyberlibel, anti-terrorism, cyber security and fake new laws.^[31] A particular type of legal intimidation that has grown in recent years is the use of ‘strategic lawsuits against public participation’ (SLAPPs). The UN defines a SLAPP as “a lawsuit that is brought for the purpose of intimidating, burdening, punishing or harassing the defendant for speaking out against the plaintiff on matters of public interest”.^[32] 

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights states that SLAPPs are increasingly used around the world, both by state and non-state actors.^[33] Business actors are responsible for a significant proportion of SLAPPs. Frequent targets of SLAPPs are journalists, environmental campaigners, human rights campaigners, academics, NGOs and media organisations. 

3. UK government action to protect journalists worldwide 

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office provides annual updates to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on its work to support media freedom around the world. In the most recent letter, sent in March 2024, the then foreign secretary set out the then government’s work in this area.^[34] In addition to its work through the MFC, outlined above, the government described its other activities. These included: 

• working with like-minded countries to counter Russian “hostile manipulation of information” through “building societal resilience to disinformation”, among other things^[35] 

• supporting the training of journalists on conflict-sensitive reporting and the use of communication tools “to ensure information was fact-checked, balanced and promoted tolerance” ahead of the general elections in Nigeria^[36] 

• participating in work and statements at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the UN supporting media freedom and condemning violations of freedom of expression 

• chairing the Council of Europe’s (CoE) ‘Group of friends for media freedom’ and supporting the CoE’s ‘Safety of journalists platform’^[37] 

• working with the International Centre for Journalists to support the reporting and monitoring of online violence against female journalists^[38] 

• working through embassies and high commissions to support media freedom in host countries 

The current government has said it will protect independent journalism, including by tackling the use of SLAPPs in the UK.^[39] In a debate in November 2024, then Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice Heidi Alexander said SLAPPs represented an abuse of the UK’s legal system.^[40] She said they “curtail free speech, have a chilling effect on public interest journalism and pose a threat to our democracy”. 

The then minister praised the previous government for introducing legislation to address SLAPPs relating to economic crime in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.^[41] She said, however, that the government did not intend to introduce further legislation against SLAPPs in the 2024–25 parliamentary session. She argued legislating “in haste” could result in “unworkable legislation with unintended consequences”.  

For further information about SLAPPs, see the House of Commons Library briefing ‘SLAPPs: Strategic litigation against public participation’ (21 February 2024).  

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Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay