When Power Rewrites the News

Journalism is meant to scrutinize power. It investigates decisions, questions official accounts, gives a platform to people affected by those decisions, and provides the public with the information they need to understand what is happening around them.

But what happens when those in power begin to control not only what journalists can report, but also the narrative surrounding the news itself?

In authoritarian systems, controlling journalism is rarely limited to shutting down a newspaper or arresting a reporter. Governments can reshape the entire information environment: controlling media ownership, restricting access to information, criminalizing criticism, discrediting independent journalists, promoting state narratives, and increasingly using digital platforms to amplify preferred messages.

The result is not simply less journalism. It is a different version of reality being presented to the public.

From censorship to narrative control

Traditional censorship is relatively easy to recognize. A newspaper is closed. A website is blocked. A journalist is detained.

Modern information control can be much more complex.

UNESCO’s latest World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development report found that global freedom of expression declined by 10% between 2012 and 2025, while self-censorship among media professionals has increased significantly. The report also highlights weakening checks and balances, growing hostility toward journalists, and increasing pressure on independent and pluralistic journalism.

For authoritarian governments, the objective is therefore not always to make journalism disappear entirely. Sometimes, the objective is to make independent journalism difficult to find, expensive to produce, dangerous to practice, or easy to dismiss.

A population can still have newspapers, television channels and social media feeds while the range of genuinely independent information becomes increasingly narrow.

This is where narrative control becomes particularly powerful.

Controlling the messenger

One of the first steps toward controlling the narrative is controlling who is allowed to tell the story.

Governments can take direct or indirect control of media outlets, pressure private owners, impose restrictive regulations, or use legal mechanisms to target journalists and organizations that challenge official narratives.

Russia provides a clear example. According to RSF, since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, almost all independent Russian media have been banned, blocked, designated as “foreign agents” or “undesirable organizations,” or placed under military censorship. Remaining media outlets are largely state-owned or controlled by Kremlin allies.

The effect goes beyond removing individual stories. When independent outlets disappear from the information ecosystem, the government has greater influence over which subjects receive attention, how events are described, and which explanations are presented as legitimate.

The same pattern can be seen in Nicaragua. RSF reports that the Ortega-Murillo government has taken control of several national television and radio outlets, while practically eliminating independent media inside the country. More than 280 Nicaraguan media workers have been forced into exile since 2018, according to RSF.

When journalists are forced out of a country, the consequences extend beyond the individual. Communities lose local reporters who understand their realities, sources lose trusted contacts, and audiences lose access to competing accounts of events.

Turning criticism into a threat

Narrative control also depends on defining who should be trusted.

Independent journalists may be portrayed as foreign agents, enemies of the state, traitors, extremists, or participants in a political conspiracy. Their reporting can then be dismissed before the public even considers the evidence.

This strategy changes the question from “Is this information accurate?” to “Who is behind this information?”

Russia’s use of “foreign agent” and “undesirable organization” designations illustrates this dynamic. RSF has documented how these laws have been used against independent media and journalists, with media-related actors representing a significant proportion of those designated.

The label itself becomes part of the narrative.

A journalist reporting on corruption is no longer simply a journalist investigating corruption. A media outlet publishing information that contradicts the government may be presented as an organization working against national interests.

This can have a chilling effect even before formal censorship takes place. Journalists may begin avoiding certain subjects, sources may become reluctant to speak, and editors may remove stories considered too risky.

In this way, censorship does not always have to be visible. Sometimes, the threat of censorship is enough.

Replacing journalism with a preferred narrative

Silencing independent media creates an information gap. Authoritarian governments can then fill that space with their own version of events.

This does not necessarily mean publishing obviously false stories. Propaganda can also work through repetition, selective framing, omission, emotionally charged language, and the constant prioritization of particular subjects.

The objective is to make one interpretation appear normal, inevitable, or unquestionable.

RSF’s research into Kremlin propaganda describes how Russian state media, military influencers and other actors work together to promote narratives about the war in Ukraine. The organization has also documented efforts to train journalists and establish media outlets in occupied Ukrainian territories to replace independent local reporting with pro-Kremlin coverage.

In territories occupied by Russia, RSF has documented the disappearance of independent Ukrainian media and their replacement by media outlets relaying the Kremlin’s narrative. Journalists who refused to cooperate have faced threats, detention or exile.

This demonstrates an important distinction: propaganda is not simply about producing information. It is also about occupying the space where independent information used to exist.

The digital transformation of propaganda

The internet has made narrative control more complicated—but it has also created new opportunities for governments seeking to influence public opinion.

Social media can allow independent journalists to reach audiences without traditional media institutions. At the same time, authoritarian governments can use digital tools to flood information environments with government-friendly content, coordinated messaging, bots, fake accounts and disinformation.

Freedom House has documented how governments have increasingly moved beyond simply blocking online content and have instead produced and amplified their own material to distort the digital information environment.

The result can be an environment in which audiences encounter so many competing claims that determining what is true becomes increasingly difficult.

That confusion can itself serve political interests.

If people stop believing journalists, experts, institutions and even basic facts, accountability becomes harder. The problem is no longer simply that citizens believe false information. It is that they may become uncertain whether any information deserves to be believed.

Exporting the narrative beyond borders

Authoritarian information strategies are also increasingly transnational.

Governments can use international broadcasters, social media, diplomatic networks, partnerships with foreign media organizations and other channels to promote their narratives outside their borders.

RSF’s 2026 Propaganda Monitor, for example, examines China’s efforts to expand its state media presence internationally. RSF reports that Beijing has invested in expanding state media abroad, developing partnerships with foreign outlets and inviting international journalists to China through sponsored trips as part of a broader effort to promote its preferred narrative.

This matters because information control is no longer necessarily confined to national territory.

A government can restrict what citizens see at home while simultaneously attempting to influence what international audiences see about the country.

The battle over journalism therefore becomes a battle over perception.

Why independent journalism matters

The danger of narrative control is not simply that governments can hide individual facts.

It is that the public sphere itself can be transformed.

Independent journalism creates competition between accounts of events. It allows governments to be questioned, gives citizens access to information beyond official statements, and provides a record that can challenge powerful actors.

When that independence disappears, the public may still receive an enormous amount of information, but much of it can originate from the same interests.

UNESCO describes free, independent, pluralistic and professional journalism as essential to an informed public and to democratic life. Its latest global report warns that weakened governance, hostility toward journalists, and declining media independence are placing these functions under increasing pressure.

This is why press freedom cannot be measured only by whether a journalist is technically permitted to publish.

We also need to ask whether journalists can investigate without intimidation, whether audiences can access competing sources, whether media outlets can operate independently, and whether journalists can challenge official narratives without being punished for doing so.

Protecting the space for different stories

Authoritarian governments do not all use exactly the same methods, and information control exists on a spectrum. But a recurring pattern is clear: controlling journalism is increasingly about controlling the conditions under which information is produced, distributed and understood.

The strategy can begin with censorship. It can continue through ownership, restrictive laws, surveillance, intimidation and discrediting campaigns. It can then evolve into the promotion of state narratives and the manipulation of digital information spaces.

For journalists, the challenge is therefore not only to report facts.

It is to preserve the conditions that allow facts to be reported independently in the first place.

When governments determine which journalists can work, which outlets can survive, which stories can be published and which narratives audiences are encouraged to trust, they are not simply influencing the news.

They are influencing the public’s understanding of reality.

At Free Press Alliance, we believe that journalism must remain independent enough to question power, investigate wrongdoing and present information without fear or political control. Protecting that independence means protecting more than journalists themselves. It means protecting the public’s right to know, question and form its own understanding of the world.

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