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cross Asia, the press continues to be squeezed by autocratic regimes, but the latest press freedom index by Reporters Without Borders has turned the spotlight on another silent killer: the media industry’s economic fragility.
Economic indicators for press freedom fell in 14 out of 25 countries and territories in Asia, based on the 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
The economic context is one of five factors RSF uses to evaluate press freedom, alongside political context, legal framework, sociocultural context, and safety. This economic measure specifically assesses financial pressures affecting media outlets and their ability to operate independently.
The RSF, the French acronym of the media rights group, introduced the use of these five indicators in its index in 2022. Data culled by the Asia Democracy Chronicles from RSF’s index from 2022 to 2024 shows that countries in Asia had an average economic score of 36.3 – the second-lowest in the four-year period.
Among the affected countries, Japan and Timor-Leste – both democracies – saw their economic scores deteriorate sharply, pushing them from “problematic” to “difficult” classifications.
Meanwhile, Laos experienced an even steeper decline, with its economic score dropping from the “difficult” category into the “very serious” range – RSF’s most concerning classification.
Timor-Leste, a democratic bright spot in Southeast Asia, recorded the region’s biggest economic decline with a 14.7-point drop in its economic score. Based solely on its economic conditions, Timor-Leste fell at least 30 places in the rankings. Its deteriorating economic score is driven by a media sector in crisis. A 2024 report by the Asia Foundation said half of the Southeast Asian country’s media outlets rely exclusively or almost exclusively on volunteers to operate, with only national broadcast media consistently offering paid positions. The economic pressure creates a revolving door effect. Some journalists leave the profession for better-paying jobs in political parties that perform well in elections.
Meanwhile, Nepal suffered the second-biggest decline, with its economic score dropping by 9.82 points. Many newsrooms across the country struggle with shrinking revenue and chronic payment delays. When Nepali journalists meet, they often grimly joke about how long they’ve gone without pay, the Diplomat reports. Rather than counting days, they measure their wait in months – with some going unpaid for as long as eight months. Those waiting “only” two or three months consider themselves the lucky ones in an industry buckling under the stress of revenue loss and plummeting advertising sales.
The overall decline in economic conditions for Asian media aligns with what RSF describes as a concerning global trend for the business of truth-telling. Across the globe the economic indicator for press freedom has reached “an unprecedented, critical low” in 2025, driving the global state of press freedom into the “difficult situation” category for the first time in the index’s history, according to RSF’s analysis.
While physical attacks against journalists remain the most visible threat, RSF warns that economic pressure has become a more insidious obstacle to independent journalism worldwide.
Unrelenting crisis
Beyond the media economy, the 2025 World Press Freedom Index also shows that most places in Asia continue to be a challenging environment for the press. Most of the countries in the region – 18 out of 25 – are in the “difficult” or “very serious” category. At least five are tagged “problematic” while only two – Taiwan and Timor-Leste – are considered “satisfactory.”
China and North Korea recorded the region’s steepest declines in their overall press freedom scores, with the former dropping 8.6 points and the latter falling 8 points. Both remain entrenched in the “very serious” category, with RSF noting that media in these countries function primarily as “propaganda tools” under systematic government control.
More than half of the countries and territories in Asia (16 out of 25) also saw their overall press freedom scores decline compared to last year.
Authoritarian control meets financial constraints
Across Asia, a dangerous combination of repressive regimes and economic vulnerability is stifling the press’ ability to freely and independently do its job. In authoritarian states like North Korea, China, and Vietnam, media outlets remain either state-owned or controlled by groups closely tied to ruling parties. Independent reporting is often relegated to journalists working underground or are in exile.
The regional spread of this model of information control is hard to miss. In Myanmar, Cambodia, and Hong Kong, crackdowns have led to newsroom closures and journalists fleeing into exile. In Afghanistan, at least 12 media outlets were forced to close in 2024 on orders of the Taliban.
Even in countries with less direct government censorship, media concentration and political collusion have long posed a significant threat.
India, Indonesia, and Malaysia’s media markets remain dominated by politically connected conglomerates that shape coverage to serve their interests. Thailand’s major outlets maintain cozy relationships with military and royal elites, while Mongolia’s media landscape is tied to business figures with direct lines to those in power.
In India, billionaire Gautam Adani, one of Asia’s richest tycoons and a longtime friend of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, acquired New Delhi Television Ltd. (NDTV) in 2022 through a hostile takeover – flipping what was once one of the country’s most independent news outlets into a government mouthpiece.
In Indonesia, the media landscape has long been concentrated in the hands of just ten large media groups, including Global Mediacomm, Jawa Pos Group, and Kompas Gramedia Group, while most mainstream outlets struggle to find viable economic models amid plummeting advertising revenues.
Data from the Indonesian Press Council reveals that at least 1,200 media workers were laid off between 2023 and 2024.
Hong Kong: the latest casualty
The number of countries in Asia whose press freedom situation falls under the “very serious” category tripled in a decade.
In a span of a decade. from just four countries in 2015 (North Korea, China, Vietnam, and Laos), there are now 13 countries and territories in the region falling under the most concerning classification in the RSF index, with Hong Kong being the latest addition.
Made with Visme
Hong Kong’s journalists now face unprecedented restrictions under Beijing’s national security law implemented in 2020 and the city’s own national security law enacted in 2024. An expanding list of press freedom challenges includes risks of arrest, detention without timely legal representation, and lengthy prison sentences for broadly defined offenses like “sedition” and “external interference.”
As this deterioration pushed the territory into the “very serious” classification – along with China – for the first time, its RSF ranking has plummeted five places to 140th in 2025. In just five years the city with a once-vibrant news media hub has become a hollow shell of its former self, with no sign of things looking up in the near or long term. ◉
Cristina Chi is a Filipino journalist based in Manila, who writes stories on education, disinformation, and human rights.
