By Xhabir Deralla

What the 2026 Index by Reporters Without Borders ultimately reveals is not simply a decline in press freedom, but a transformation in how that decline operates. Freedom is no longer removed in visible, dramatic acts. It is contained, redirected, and gradually neutralized—often within systems that continue to present themselves as democratic.

As the report itself warns, “for the first time in the history of the RSF World Press Freedom Index, over half of the world’s countries now fall into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ categories for press freedom.” Even more alarming, “in 25 years, the average score of all 180 countries and territories surveyed in the Index has never been so low.”

These indicators reveal a deeper structural shift taking shape beneath the surface of decline. Attention must now turn to the mechanisms reshaping press freedom, and the interests they serve.

What defines this new phase in the global erosion of media freedom?

Across much of the world, media outlets are still present. Laws preserve the form of democracy. Elections are held, campaigns are waged, and public debate appears alive. From the outside, the architecture of democratic communication seems intact.

But within this framework, the space for independent journalism is steadily shrinking. Editorial independence is eroded not by bans, but by dependence. Investigative reporting is discouraged not through prohibition, but through exhaustion – legal, financial, and psychological. Journalists are not always imprisoned; they are discredited, isolated, and drowned in noise. Media landscapes are not silenced; they are saturated, fragmented, and manipulated.

We are witnessing the construction of an illusion. A system that appears pluralistic while systematically constraining the conditions under which truth can emerge. And the readers should know: the situation is even worse.

As someone working with CIVIL – Center for Freedom since 1999, and within its media platform, first as a journalist and now as editor-in-chief, I can confirm the backsliding reported by Reporters Without Borders. The numbers are accurate. The trend is real. But what indices of this kind cannot fully capture is the daily, lived reality of how media freedom and freedom of expression are being grinded down – slowly, persistently, and often invisibly.

As a professional journalist since 1990, I have worked through wars, refugee crises, and times when the risks were immediate and undeniable. Back then, danger had a face. It was direct, visible, tangible.

Today, it operates differently. But it is no less real—and no less dangerous. Smear campaigns designed for character assassination. Silence from journalist associations and the captured media regulators. Death threats. Relentless lawsuits with clear SLAPP elements. These are not abstract concerns. They are part of my own professional reality—and of the broader environment in North Macedonia.

Don’t be fooled. This does not happen only in courtrooms or through legislation. It unfolds in the calculation of whether a story is worth the personal cost, in editorial meetings shaped by caution and uncertainty. It is there in the frequent calls to a lawyer—checking whether an analysis, report, or opinion piece might trigger yet another costly lawsuit. (At this moment, I am still paying installments to the law office representing Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.)

It continues in the silence that follows a threatening message. In the quiet, persistent boycott by commercial sponsors, unwilling to advertise in independent and critical media. In the slow normalization of pressure—when what was once unacceptable becomes routine. And within that lived reality, the situation is worse. Far worse than any index can capture.

North Macedonia illustrates how pressure on media is constructed in the contemporary moment. It does not originate from a single actor or a single policy, but from the convergence of multiple forces operating within a persistent climate of threat. What emerges is not always the result of visible coordination, but of alignment—gradual, systemic, and mutually reinforcing. Even where coordination is neither formal nor overt, authoritarian, corrupt, and nationalist actors tend to move in the same direction. Their actions intersect, overlap, and amplify one another, producing what appears to be a “natural” alignment. In reality, this is a system shaped by incentives, power structures, and shared interests.

Domestic nationalist forces, entrenched oligarchic networks, and authoritarian political actors operate in parallel with external centers of influence—from Moscow to Budapest to Belgrade—forming an ecosystem in which narratives, pressure, and influence circulate across borders and reinforce one another.

In such a system, repression rarely needs to be explicit. The conditions themselves do the work, and that is precisely what makes it so difficult to measure, and so dangerous to ignore.

The real danger, therefore, is not only that journalists are silenced. It is that journalism continues to exist—but in a weakened, compromised, and distorted form. A form that retains the appearance of scrutiny without its substance. A form that can be cited as proof of freedom, even as it fails to fulfill its function.

This is the map of a new reality—one in which press freedom is not simply attacked, but re-engineered. Not through spectacular acts of repression, but through sustained pressure, economic leverage, legal constraints, and narrative control. In this model, power does not need to shut down the press. It only needs to shape the environment in which the press operates. When pressure is subtle, it is harder to expose. When control is indirect, it is harder to resist. When freedom exists only on paper, it is harder to defend.

And when the system continues to function—when headlines are published, debates are aired, and information circulates—it becomes easier to believe that nothing fundamental has changed.

But it has.

Journalism still exists. It still produces content, fills pages, and occupies space. Yet something essential is slipping away. A world is taking shape in which journalism survives—but truth does not. And in such a world, the distance between lies and violence is never far.

Xhabir Deralla is a journalist, analyst, and President of CIVIL – Center for Freedom.

© Xhabir Deralla / CIVIL – Center for Freedom, 2026.
Republishing permitted with prior written consent.

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