Viable, diverse, stable and safe — is this really too much for the media to ask?

Exacerbated challenges: In France, the press face a a global security law, which will make it an offence to share images that identify police officers in operation by face or name. — AFP

VIABILITY, diversity, stability and safety are essential ingredients of any healthy information ecosystem. How many media worldwide can say yes to all four? How far are individual professionals, news organisations, and the industry as a whole from achieving these? And at this time of global anxiety, economic turmoil, and future uncertainty, is it crazy to be aiming for them in the first place?

As we mark World Press Freedom Day tomorrow on May 3, media across the globe are fighting threats both existential and immediate. The Covid-19 health pandemic has exacerbated, and in many instances accelerated challenges familiar to media owners, editors and journalists everywhere. The dilemma for an industry shrinking by the day and fast running out of money is that the biggest, most unavoidable cost is the journalism that, by its very essence, defines it.