Press freedom in a world of slopaganda and churnalism

Do you feel exhausted trying to find reliable facts about everything happening around you? As emerging digital platforms increasingly outpace legacy media, it is often frustrating to discover that a seemingly credible story, complete with high-quality video footage, turns out to be fabricated. Such content is frequently designed either to malign individuals or to advance the vested interests of particular groups. While many of these interests are political in nature, they can also serve corporate or business agendas.

Rapid technological advancement and the widespread, low-cost accessibility of artificial intelligence (AI) tools have significantly lowered the barriers to content creation. Today, almost anyone with minimal resources can become a content producer. Much of this cheap, low-quality content is now weaponised as propaganda, used by malicious actors to run disinformation and misinformation campaigns. Communication experts have coined the term “slopaganda” to describe this phenomenon. Although the word has yet to enter common vocabulary, most of us have encountered, and at times been misled by, such content. Across the spectrum—politicians from all sides, business leaders, civil society representatives, academics, and activists—there is now broad recognition of the dangers posed by slopaganda, along with growing calls for urgent measures to counter it.

Alongside this trend is another troubling form of media proliferation. A number of media outlets have emerged that show little interest in serious public-service journalism. Instead, they are used as tools to advance specific business interests, shield corruption and malpractice, or promote one-sided narratives. These outlets often rely on the unethical practice of copying and republishing press releases or producing derivative content with minimal verification or critical analysis. Experts have termed this practice “churnalism,” distinguishing it from genuine journalism. In Bangladesh’s already overcrowded media landscape, churnalism has become a dominant practice and is widely regarded as one of the key reasons behind the audience’s growing disengagement from legacy media.

If reading this far feels disheartening, it is important to recognise that Bangladesh is not unique in facing these challenges. The global media ecosystem is currently in a dire state, confronting levels of adversity and attack that are unprecedented in recent history.

The latest World Press Freedom Index indicates that global media freedom has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century. In 25 years, the average score across the 180 countries and territories assessed has never been this low. Should this come as a surprise? When self-proclaimed leaders of the free world remain conspicuously silent in the face of what many rights activists describe as “journocide” in Palestine and Lebanon by Israel, their moral authority to criticise censorship in fragile democracies or countries drifting towards autocracy becomes increasingly questionable. According to the United Nations, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, more than 260 media professionals had been killed by December 2025. In addition, 11 Lebanese journalists were killed in their own country in connection with this conflict, as per figures compiled by the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which publishes the annual index, also indicated that the legal environment for journalism has deteriorated most sharply over the past year, signalling an increasing trend towards the criminalisation of journalistic work. While journalists continue to face killings and imprisonment, the methods used to undermine press freedom are evolving. Journalism is being choked by hostile political rhetoric, a faltering media economy, and laws increasingly deployed as instruments against the press. Despite a brief improvement in 2025, Bangladesh’s position in the index has been on a downward trajectory for nearly two decades. The most recent drop—by three places—is particularly concerning as it reflects the failure of an interim administration born out of an uprising to uphold its commitments to ensure journalists’ safety and to end harassment, including arrests and prolonged detention on questionable charges.

Further underscoring the challenges, UNESCO’s World Trends Report on Freedom of Expression and Media Development (2022–2025), released ahead of this World Press Freedom Day, notes that freedom of expression worldwide has declined by 10 percent since 2012. The report describes this regression as comparable in scale to the most unstable periods of the 20th century, encompassing both world wars and the Cold War era.

According to UNESCO, several factors are driving this setback, including the intensification of armed conflicts (61 active conflicts were recorded globally in 2024), alongside rising information manipulation and interference by malicious actors, often facilitated by AI technologies. The erosion of trust and concerns over national security also play a role. The report highlights a 48 percent increase in efforts to control or restrict media, as well as persistent violence against journalists, with 85 percent of such killings going unpunished. It also points to the growing economic fragility of independent media, linked to the concentration of more than 54 percent of global advertising revenues within digital platforms. At the same time, digital disruption and AI-driven transformations of information ecosystems are accelerating, with 40 percent of users already relying on AI to create or modify content. These pressures have contributed to a 63 percent increase in self-censorship since 2012, driven by fear of reprisals, online harassment, judicial intimidation, and economic constraints.

These adversities are not unfamiliar. Bangladesh’s Media Reform Commission (MRC), formed by the interim government following the 2024 uprising, identified many of these issues during its investigations and consultations. Some of these challenges are deeply rooted and historical, while others are emerging and largely uncharted. The MRC put forward a comprehensive set of recommendations, proposing phased implementation. Notably, several of these measures could have been enacted immediately under existing laws and regulations. However, the interim government failed to take meaningful action during its tenure, resulting in a missed opportunity for reform.

Fortunately, Bangladesh witnessed a successful national election last February. This democratic transition has opened a new window of opportunity to undertake meaningful media reforms, without which democratic recovery risks faltering once again. In its election manifesto, the ruling BNP pledged to ensure full independence of the media, establish a permanent media commission to safeguard press freedom, protect journalists from attacks, and restore public trust through mechanisms of self-regulation. These commitments are critical. Without a vibrant, transparent, and accountable media ecosystem, the threats posed by slopaganda, churnalism, and other challenges will continue to undermine democratic stability and distort public discourse.

Kamal Ahmed is consulting editor at The Daily Star. He led the Media Reform Commission under the interim government. His X handle is @ahmedka1.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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