Press organisations are vibrant and restive institutions which
provide platforms for power negotiations in the public space. They
set the stage for public discourse on popular issues and enjoy wide
readership. The principal features of press organisations include critical
independence, democratic constructiveness and commercial viability
[1-3]. The state’s fear of the power of press organisations and their
immense contributions to the defence of fundamental human rights
often serves as justification for censorship. Although freedom of the
press is guaranteed in the First Amendment, to what extent that right
is protected has been battled in court and debated in public opinion for
more than 200 years. Historically, “press freedom” is known as such
because it was printers and newspapers that fought for this right which
nowadays refers to media in general. It is a right that goes beyond an
individual’s freedom of expression, much as it is also built upon that
right. In many places, it is privately-owned newspapers that continue
this quest or help preserve victories against powerful forces who are
sensitive to certain information becoming public. The question to be
addressed in this paper therefore is the extent to which the battleground
of press freedom today has a new frontier that incorporates cyberspace.
This also entails taking stock of the main forces in the realm of new
media (besides newspapers’ presence there), and indeed whether old
and new media are even on the same side in respect of this new arena.
There are also questions of tools, tactics and issues in the contest for and
against “press freedom” in this non-traditional environment. What, in
short, are the new battles being fought, how do they affect “old” ones,
and vice versa? And how does all this relate to “developing countries”?