Report Warns Botswana Risks Slide Into “Information Authoritarianism”
Journalist Mmapula Molapong’s co-authored media mapping study highlights growing legal, political, economic and digital threats to press freedom.
Journalist Mmapula Molapong has co-authored a media mapping threats report which calls for reform to ensure greater protection of journalists in Botswana.
The study is entitled A Democracy at the Crossroads Mapping threats to the media in Botswana.
Molapong says the report provides a forensic analysis of the multi-faceted threats. These include legal, political, economic, digital, and societal factors that currently besiege Botswana’s media.
This she says, currently hinders it from effectively serving the public interest and ensuring democratic accountability.
Amid concern about media freedom and shrinking civil space, Molapong says the report posits that without urgent structural reforms and a genuine political will to protect journalistic independence, Botswana risks sliding from a defective democracy into a regime of information authoritarianism.
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