A new report has expressed alarm at what it describes as a decline in press freedom across the Americas, with the United States suffering the steepest decline.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) published its latest press freedom index this Tuesday, placing last year as the lowest point for freedom of expression since the report began in 2020.
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Researchers found that the Americas have experienced a “dramatic deterioration” in unrestricted speech, according to the report.
“This is one of the worst years for journalism in the region, marked by murders, arbitrary detentions, exile and rampant impunity in countries such as Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela,” the report says.
He added that there have been greater restrictions on freedom of expression in countries of various ideological tendencies, whether right or left.
The United States, however, was noted as an area of “alarming decline.” In a ranking of 23 countries across the hemisphere, the United States fell from fourth place to 11th, indicating that journalists are operating with greater restrictions.
Changes under President Donald Trump, who returned to office last year, were cited as a major factor.
“Although journalistic practice in the United States remains protected by the Constitution and laws, the events of the past year saw the erosion of safeguards,” the report explains.
Trump, he said, had contributed to the “stigmatization of critical journalism.” The report also pointed to events such as cuts to funding for public media and the closure of Voice of America, a government-funded broadcaster, as harming the free press.
In total, the report recorded 170 attacks against journalists in the United States last year and cited interactions with federal immigration agents as an area of concern.
The report also noted that Nicaragua and Venezuela continue to be classified as “without freedom of expression.”
In the case of Venezuela, for example, he cited the closure of more than 400 radio stations and the arrest of 25 journalists in the wake of the controversial 2024 presidential elections.
On a scale of 100, the report places press freedom in the country at 7.02. It remains in last place on the list of 23 countries in the report.
El Salvador also fell in the latest evaluation of the index, now in position 21 on the press freedom list, just ahead of Nicaragua and Venezuela.
In an accompanying statement, Sergio Arauz, president of the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES), denounced what he called the “escalation of repression” under the government of President Nayib Bukele.
Arauz noted that 50 Salvadoran journalists had been driven into exile last year amid a campaign of harassment by the government.
“There are no possibilities to fully practice journalism without facing consequences when there is an Executive Branch with practically unlimited powers and without effective legal control,” said Arauz.
Since 2022, Bukele and his government have placed the country under a state of emergency that suspended key civil liberties and granted wide latitude to state security forces, in the name of tackling crime.
Tuesday’s report noted the state of emergency as a factor undermining freedom of expression and also cited El Salvador’s new Foreign Agents Law, which gives the government the power to dissolve organizations that receive funding from abroad.
El Salvador is one of eight nations categorized in the index as “high restriction,” along with Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, Haiti and Cuba.
The Dominican Republic, Chile, Canada and Brazil were among the countries with the greatest protection of press freedom.
