Nepal’s Media Landscape Faces a ‘Watershed Moment’

KATHMANDU, NEPAL — Four years after a pandemic upended Nepal’s media sector and eliminated more than two-thirds of the print, radio and television jobs in the country, work for journalists remains scarce. Salary cuts for many people haven’t been restored — some journalists are even fighting in court to get the pay they’re owed. On top of that, government pressure that intensified during the pandemic is only growing stronger.

“The media simply wasn’t prepared for crisis management,” says Rabi Raj Baral, founder of Media Kurakani, a popular blog focused on press issues. Nepali media was in trouble anyway, he says, but the pandemic laid bare the problems.

Freedom Forum, a Nepali organization that tracks press freedom, calls this a “watershed moment” for Nepali media. Like in many countries, the government in Nepal engaged in censorship efforts during the pandemic to manage messaging around the virus’s spread. But now, years after the pandemic eased, multiple new bills are sparking concerns about a fresh wave of restrictions.

Some bills were approved in April, and some are still pending, but all attempt to consolidate media control under a government-sanctioned council. The government has also introduced guidelines to prevent some communication it considers problematic on messaging systems including Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp. The guidelines are vague, critics say, so the government can interpret them to its own convenience.

At the same time, Freedom Forum has stated that media houses must respect the labor rights of working journalists. That critique came after dozens of journalists filed complaints against media houses, largely Kantipur Media Group, for unpaid wages, according to the Federation of Nepali Journalists. In 2023, a labor court froze the accounts of Kantipur Media Group after those complaints.

The crisis in Nepal mirrors global trends, where media outlets are grappling with dual threats: economic instability and rising political pressures. As newsrooms continue to shrink, the ability of the press to fulfill its essential role, especially during pivotal moments such as elections, is increasingly compromised. Reports from organizations like Reporters Without Borders highlight how the pandemic was leveraged to undermine press freedom in various nations, raising concerns about the future of independent journalism. Some governments, in the name of fighting fake news during the pandemic, censored news media. An Amnesty International investigation found that a host of countries shut down the internet, and news organizations entirely, ostensibly to end disinformation.

In Nepal, the stakes are high. Newsroom cuts undermined the vibrant media environment that flourished after the country’s decadelong civil war ended in 2006. Meanwhile, government pressure continues. Freedom Forum found that “intimidation via cyberspace” increased in 2023. There were 52 incidents of violations of press freedom.

In May this year, Kailash Sirohiya, chairman of Kantipur Media Group, was arrested on accusations that he held multiple citizenships. The arrest happened shortly after the newspaper published stories accusing then-Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane of misappropriating money — and the complaint leading to the arrest was made by Lamichhane’s political party.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, in response to the arrest, called on Nepal’s government to not “harass or intimidate” the media group in retaliation for its reporting.

Sirohiya’s release nine days later did little to quell concerns that Nepal is sliding toward authoritarianism, says Umesh Chauhan, an editor at Kantipur, a daily newspaper.

Governments around the world discredit media groups whose coverage they dislike, he says. If the media gets distracted by these issues, it will be a crisis.

“But if the media remains undistracted in its duties, the profession can always move forward,” Chauhan says.