When public declarations grow loud but truth begins to whisper
Thomas Nkhoma | Monday May 18, 2026 06:00
That is where Botswana now finds itself. The danger is not only censorship. It is the slow normalisation of fear. As Botswana joins the world on May 3 to commemorate World Press Freedom Day, the occasion should not be reduced to speeches, hashtags and ceremonial declarations. It should be a moment of national honesty. Because while World Press Freedom Day was born in Africa - from the 1991 Windhoek Declaration in Namibia, where African journalists declared that independent and pluralistic media is essential to democracy and development - countries such as Botswana are now quietly drifting away from that principle.
Africa gave the world that declaration. The responsibility now is to defend it. Instead, Botswana’s media environment increasingly reflects what many hoped the 2024 political transition would end, the quiet return of media capture. There was optimism after the elections.
A new administration promised openness, democratic renewal and a break from old habits of political hostility towards the press. Many expected a healthier relationship between government and journalism. They expected less suspicion, less control and stronger respect for editorial independence.
Regrettably, reality has been less inspiring. The state broadcaster remains the clearest battleground. Recent developments at the Department of Broadcasting Services have revived old anxieties about political interference and professional autonomy. Questions around programming decisions, newsroom direction and who gets to ask difficult questions continue to expose the same uncomfortable truth: a public broadcaster cannot serve two masters.
It either serves citizens or it serves power. Public media should belong to the public, not to those temporarily occupying office. Yet the slow capture of state media often happens in the name of reform. New leadership is presented as renewal. Editorial caution is framed as professionalism. Silence becomes discipline. And before long, journalism becomes performance.
This is not merely a broadcasting problem. It reflects a wider climate turning increasingly hostile for the press. President Duma Boko’s remarks suggesting that “90 percent of media reports are false” did more than provoke debate. They signalled something deeper about the relationship between political leadership and the press. Criticism of journalism is legitimate. No profession should be above scrutiny. However, when leadership frames the media as largely dishonest, it creates permission for public distrust and institutional hostility.
Words from power are never neutral. They shape the national mood. When the press is repeatedly portrayed as the enemy, intimidation no longer needs to be official. It becomes cultural. This is precisely how press freedom declines, not dramatically but gradually.
UNESCO’s 2022–2025 World Trends Report confirms that this is a global pattern. Freedom of expression has declined by 10 percent since 2012. Self-censorship among journalists has risen by 63 percent. Government and powerful groups’ control over the media has intensified by 48 percent. More than 300 journalists were killed between 2022 and 2025. Perhaps, the most dangerous figure is not the killings. It is self-censorship. A jailed journalist is visible. A closed newspaper is visible.
Consequently, Batswana must understand that a reporter who quietly abandons a story out of fear of retaliation leaves no evidence. That silence does not trend on social media. It does not produce outrage. Yet it is often the first sign that democracy is beginning to weaken.
Botswana’s own warning signs are clear. The report A Democracy at the Crossroads: Mapping Threats to the Media in Botswana argues that the country’s decline in media freedom is not caused by a single dramatic law or an obvious crackdown, but by a convergence of structural vulnerabilities and deliberate political strategies. Botswana ranked 42nd on the World Press Freedom Index in 2015, but has now fallen to 81st by 2025.
That is not an administrative coincidence. It is a democratic decline. The report points to restrictive legislation, defamation threats, surveillance concerns, shrinking newsroom resources and political hostility. But perhaps most revealing is the issue of economic control. Media capture today often happens through influence buying. Who gets government advertising? Who gets excluded? Which newsroom survives? Which one quietly collapses?
A starving newsroom cannot investigate deeply. A journalist worried about salary arrears cannot easily challenge power. Financial dependence often creates editorial dependence. When the state becomes both regulator and the biggest advertiser, independence becomes fragile.
This is why media sustainability is not just a business issue. It is a press freedom issue. A newsroom struggling to pay salaries cannot afford courage for long. The challenge is made worse by the digital age. Journalism is no longer only fighting censorship. It is fighting noise. Social media has democratised information, but it has also democratised misinformation, as outrage travels further than verification.
This is why Botswana’s media moment is critical. It is not defined by dramatic censorship but by subtle recalibration. Reform and restriction increasingly coexist in the same space, making it harder to distinguish progress from regression. The challenge for Botswana is not only to preserve press freedom in principle but to protect it in practice, through institutions strong enough to resist political pressure, economic systems that support independence and a culture that values scrutiny over silence.
*Thomas Thos Nkhoma is MISA-Botswana chairperson
World Press Freedom Day 2026, under the theme “Shaping a Future at Peace”, should not be interpreted as a ceremonial milestone. It should be read as a warning embedded in global trends and local realities: Peace without truth is fragile, and democracy without a free press is incomplete. Writes THOMAS THOS NKHOMA*