Ladder
Ladder: licensing and closure of outlets, in Europe
A government requires newspapers, broadcasters or news websites to register or to hold a licence, and uses that power to refuse, suspend or cancel it, or to close the outlet. Broadcast licences, which governments issue because radio and television frequencies are limited, are a common lever.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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2Pressure
Using state power short of prosecution to change coverage: regulatory threats, licence reviews, funding cuts, lawsuits by officials, official "fake news" or "foreign agent" labels, advertising pressure, tax audits.
Hungary's parliament, controlled by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party, passed a media law creating a government-appointed National Media and Infocommunications Authority empowered to fine any outlet, print, broadcast or online, for coverage it deemed unbalanced or offensive to public moral…
Sustained 1 January 2011 · 1 source · Full entry
Slovakia's parliament, controlled by Prime Minister Robert Fico's coalition, dissolved public broadcaster RTVS and replaced it with a new entity, STVR, whose director is now chosen through a process giving parliament and the culture ministry more direct control, prompting protests and criticism fro…
Sustained 1 July 2024 · 2 sources · Full entry
4Silence
Removing outlets or channels from the public sphere: closures, licence withdrawals, forced sales, blocking and shutdowns, prior restraint, nationalisation.
In 1922, Soviet Russia created Glavlit, a single agency that reviewed newspapers, books, plays and even posters before they could be printed or performed.
Ongoing 1 January 1989 · 2 sources · Full entry
Weeks after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor, the government used a fire that heavily damaged the Reichstag building to obtain President Paul von Hindenburg's approval for a decree suspending the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press, along with the rights to assembly and free expre…
Sustained 1 May 1945 · 2 sources · Full entry
In 1933, Germany's Editors Law (Schriftleitergesetz) required journalists to register with a new state-controlled Reich Press Chamber and barred non-Aryans from the profession.
Reversed 8 May 1945 · 2 sources · Full entry
The collaborationist government installed in occupied Greece created a Directorate-General for Press and Radio to take over and expand the prior review powers of the prewar Metaxas dictatorship, requiring official permission before films, plays, music, and publications could reach the public.
Sustained · 2 sources · Full entry
Home Secretary Douglas Hurd directed British broadcasters in October 1988 not to air the voices of representatives of Sinn Féin, a party linked to the Irish Republican Army, and other groups linked to violence in Northern Ireland.
Reversed 16 September 1994 · 1 source · Full entry
Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas company, used debts owed by NTV's parent company to take control of the country's last major independent television network at a shareholders' meeting, replacing its owner and top editors with its own appointees.
Sustained 14 April 2001 · 1 source · Full entry
Hungary's Media Council ended Klubradio's decades-old terrestrial broadcast license, citing errors in its renewal application, after the station had built a following as one of the country's few remaining independent voices.
Note: A national broadcast regulator ended one of the country's last independent stations' terrestrial license over its paperwork, and the country's top court upheld the decision.
Upheld by a court 1 September 2021 · 3 sources · Full entry
A Moscow court suspended the print license of Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, after the media regulator Roskomnadzor said the paper had not provided documents about a 2006 change of ownership.
Note: A national court ended a Nobel-recognized newspaper's print license outright over a sixteen-year-old paperwork dispute, not a temporary suspension or fine.
Sustained 5 September 2022 · 2 sources · Full entry
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