Katie Barron

South Africa’s constitutional protections for press freedom are among the strongest on the continent. This year, the country even led Africa in the World Press Freedom rankings. So why did half the journalists we spoke to in the country report facing legal threats because of their work? Our latest report, Weaponising the Law: Threats to media freedom in South Africa highlights a widening gap between safeguards for media in principle and threats to their work in practice.

For too long, media freedom has been positioned as a laudable aspiration rather than a real priority, with strong but often fragmented evidence of its contribution to economic stability, national security and information integrity. That’s why a new report, The Value of Journalism, is critical and timely in revealing the undeniable value of journalism for societies and individuals.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation has created the world’s largest dataset on how companies are using AI. Through our free tool, we’re supporting companies to prioritise transparency and responsible practice. As companies race to embrace the potential of AI, they are adopting the technology faster than they are governing it, according to data from the Thomson Reuters Foundation.