Colombian president ends term with projects for safeguarding press freedom still unfinished

Colombia is one of the few countries in the Americas where the overall situation has improved, elevating its ranking to 102nd out of 180 countries and territories in RSF's 2026 World Press Freedom Index. But this should not obscure a fragile dynamic: attacks against the press are recurrent, and eight journalists have been murdered during Petro's presidency, including Mateo Pérez Rueda, the director of the online news outlet El Confidente, earlier this month.

Following its July 2025 meeting with President Petro, whose preferred presidential successor, Ivan Cepeda, is projected to win the first round of voting on 31 May, RSF is taking stock of recent years and recommending ambitious future reforms.

How can we safeguard access to reliable and diverse information?

Press freedom relies on access to state-held information, media pluralism and the diversity of information actors, which requires media outlets capable of operating sustainably and independently. Many media outlets in Colombia are financially precarious, depend on state or private-sector advertising, and are exposed to harassment in the field. Without the necessary material and institutional support to survive, they censor themselves, cut back coverage or sometimes just shut down, often in areas that are already news and information deserts.

These concerns emerged during RSF's visit to Bogotá in August 2024 and have been the subject of certain commitments made by the government in recent years: strengthening the economic sustainability of the media, with particular attention to community and local news media; guaranteeing the editorial independence of public media so that they can fulfil their mission without being subject to political agendas; ensuring a more equitable distribution of state advertising; and addressing the challenges posed by disinformation and artificial intelligence.

The public policy project developed by the interior ministry includes recommendations, for example, to guarantee access to "truthful, impartial and timely" state-held information and to ensure that public funding respects media pluralism and diversity. At the same time, the 2035 Digital Transformation Mission of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies (MinTIC) recognises community and citizen media as strategic players.

RSF Recommendation: Several of these commitments remain unfulfilled and will only be credible if accompanied by transparent rules on the allocation of state advertising to guarantee fair and non-discriminatory funding; editorial autonomy for newsrooms and clear criteria for assessing media pluralism; resources to enable local and community news outlets to resist political and economic pressures; and concrete measures to combat disinformation and the use of artificial intelligence - based on transparency, human oversight and accountability.

How can we better protect those who inform the public?

The safety of journalists and other media professionals remains one of the country's major challenges. Colombia has relevant mechanisms in place, such as the National Protection Unit (UNP), and the ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Jineth Bedoya, a journalist with the daily newspaper El Tiempo, recognising the Colombian state's "responsibility" for security.

However, an effective, rapid and appropriate response to the real risks of practicing journalism is not always guaranteed. During Gustavo Petro's presidential term, which began in August 2022, RSF has documented at least eight cases of journalists murdered in connection with their work, including those of Rafael Emiro Moreno, Mardonio Mejia Mendoza, Jaime Vasquez, Oscar Gomez Agudelo and Mateo Pérez Rueda.

The monitoring carried out by RSF, continuing the work conducted with the Ombudsman's Office, also highlights forced displacement, exile, online harassment, censorship, and the many other obstacles to the work of the press. This cooperation has informed several pilot risk-monitoring mechanisms and has underscored the importance of maintaining institutional coordination in the most vulnerable areas.

RSF Recommendation: The main challenge remains the inadequacy of the state's response to attacks, threats, and murders targeting journalists, and the resulting impunity. The state's commitments must now be translated into concrete action through verifiable response times, more efficient risk assessments, the effective implementation of the emergency protocol for cases of violence, continued coordination with the Ombudsman's Office, and more proactive investigations into threats and crimes against journalists.

Urgent need to ensure a public discourse that values ​​journalism

In addition to material and security conditions, another equally crucial aspect is preventing derogatory rhetoric against the press in order to protect the environment and political climate in which the media operate. The recurring tensions between President Gustavo Petro and key sectors of the journalism community show that this is still a central issue.

Although Presidential Directive No. 07 of 2024 on the duties of public officials regarding respect for press freedom ordered authorities to refrain from stigmatising journalists, discriminating against them, or making statements likely to incite violence, these standards have not been fully implemented in practice under this government.

RSF Recommendation: The immediate challenge is no longer to conduct new assessments, but to ensure that this obligation is not dependent on the style of any particular government but is embraced as a state policy, in order to promote an environment conducive to the practice of journalism, both during the final stage of the current presidential term and in the next one.