It’s disconcerting to live at a time when freedom from the press is becoming more important than freedom of the press. When security guards use brutal force to drag a journalist out of a press conference, while the leader of the supposedly free world is sipping his water.

The shameful episode from Trump’s and Putin’s joint press conference looked like a scene fresh out of North Korea. An accredited journalist for The Nation, Sam Husseini, tried to fight off the guard who had him in a wrestler’s hold. Gone was the respect for the journalistic profession, the free world and human dignity.

The supposed crime of opinion the reporter committed was to silently hold up a piece of paper saying “Nuclear test ban treaty.” He hoped that the words would attract Trump’s attention, so that he could ask a question about it. But it turned out that world leaders no longer feel obliged to answer uncomfortable questions. It’s easier to use some good old violence to get rid of anything that isn’t PR-approved. Next question, please!

Why are they getting away with it, in a society where everyone and their grandma proudly proclaim to be freedom of expression advocates? Where we cried out on social media that we were Charlie, to defend French journalists’ questionable right to make fun of religion. Why did we collectively defend that, but not a reporter named Husseini’s right to ask an actual question about an actual issue?

It probably made a difference that Husseini’s name is Husseini. It also made a difference that he represents a small media outlet that is considered an alternative source of news. World leaders are more careful about starting wars against TV giants, hence the whole mandatory pre-screening of questions and lunch dates with big reporters circus. But if all media voices except the loudest are silenced, we are on a slippery slope to the death of quality journalism.

Increasingly, a trend among the giants is to compromise quality in favour of infotainment, to reach the masses and, through them, advertisers. The BBC’s 2018 documentary on The Power of Putin is a shockingly good example. It’s a production that would never have passed the test if a bunch of journalism students had presented it to their professor as a university assignment. In a cinematic voice, a BCC reporter makes a series of guesses about Putin’s thoughts, feelings and fears, presenting them as facts. Feelings are a great ingredient in Hollywood flicks – but can we invent and attribute them to the subject of a documentary without even interviewing him just because it makes the production sexier? Is that the future of journalism, while alternative voices get wrestled out of the room? If it is, there’s not much hope left for late bloomers like Mauritius, even if we, against all odds, do get a Freedom of Information Act one day.

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