The Listening Post

Killing the messengers: Afghan media under fire

We look at the Taliban threat and the future of Afghan journalism; plus, Davos – global news event or PR exercise?

On January 20, journalism in Afghanistan was dealt a killer blow. Seven employees of the country’s first ever 24-hour news network, Tolo TV, were killed when the Taliban targeted their bus in a suicide bombing.

Last year, the armed group issued a statement in which it declared Tolo TV and Afghan network 1TV “military targets”. The threat came in response to the channels’ coverage of Taliban’s invasion of Kunduz last September.

The stations alleged that fighters had been involved in gang rapes – claims the Taliban denied and cited an “example of propaganda by these satanic networks”.

The attack on Tolo TV leaves Afghan journalists between a rock and a hard place, with the threat posed by the Taliban exacerbated by pressure from government officials to report on Afghanistan in a way that suits their version of the political and social story – that progress is being made.

Until last week’s attack on the media, government officials and those with links to them had been responsible for more threats against Afghan journalists – over stories about corruption, land grabs, violence against women and human rights abuses – than the Taliban were.

The phenomenal growth of Afghanistan’s media sector has been considered one of the great success stories of the post-2001 reconstruction. But with journalists under fire and pressure from different sides, what does this mean for the future of journalism in the country?

Talking us through this story are Lotfullah Najafizada, the head of Tolonews TV; Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, the executive director at Nai; Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi, Afghanistan correspondent at DW; and Frahnaz Frotan, a journalist at Ariana TV.


Other stories on our radar this week: Multiple Japanese TV hosts lose their jobs after challenging the official government line; in Morocco, investigative journalists are on trial charged with “threatening national security” and “undermining national territorial integrity”; and The Guardian newspaper announces a 20 percent budget cut.


Davos: Global news event or PR exercise?

Every year, more than 500 journalists congregate in Davos in the Swiss Alps to report on an invitation-only meeting of the global elite, The World Economic Forum.

Coverage of the exclusive annual alpine assembly offers business leaders and political figures a great media platform to spin their profit numbers and market their countries.

Yet the forum has an optics problem. Advertised as a conference “to improve the state of the world”, it would be the ultimate place for journalists to challenge the rich on issues as inequalities and yawning wealth gaps.

But with financial news outlets deeply embedded in capitalism’s status quo, social and economic inequalities are everything but high on the news agenda.

The Listening Post‘s Meenakshi Ravi reports on the annual spectacle that is Davos, the media embedded at the event, and how the forum is reported.


And we finish the show in Davos with a selection of quotes compiled by the comms team there. Mantras, slogans intended to inspire – but that sometimes work better seen through an ironic lens. Because if you want to grow your “brand”, you don’t really need a new idea. An old one will do, as long as you recycle it and repackage it with some new buzzwords.