Media freedom is often curtailed in the wake of terrorist attacks. In this chapter, we ask whether constitutional provisions that are intended – directly or indirectly – to protect media freedom affect the degree to which press freedom is curtailed after terrorist incidents. We find that neither provisions explicitly protecting media freedom nor provisions that might protect media freedom indirectly (such as those guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary) mitigate the post-terror curtailment of press freedom.

In 1823 and 1824, two newspaper editors, James Silk Buckingham and George Greig, were subjected to extrajudicial banishment after their respective newspapers were deemed dangerous influences on colonial society in Bengal (Buckingham) and the Cape of Good Hope (Greig). There are important resonances in the way in which these two separate episodes attracted controversy over the relationship between the executive and judicial branches of colonial government and the practice of using state-sanctioned banishment against dissenting political voices. They were also taken up in similar ways by British reformers who sought to embarrass conservatives at home by linking political struggles in the metropole with those of the imperial periphery. As a result, the cases raise legal and constitutional questions over personal liberty, state security, and subjecthood that extended far beyond their original colonial contexts.

Chapter 5 reveals how Hong Kong’s freedom of expression was defined and confined by changes in the China strategies of Britain and other world powers. The diplomat Murray MacLehose assumed Hong Kong’s governorship in 1971 with an express mandate from London to build civic pride and raise living standards in Hong Kong to maximise the British bargaining position in negotiations over Hong Kong’s future with a post-Mao regime. In addition to the well-known expansion of social services and efforts to combat crime and corruption, MacLehose’s governorship also featured a hitherto understudied loosening of media control. Yet behind the overt building of a free city were the covert surveillance of political activists and unchanged draconian laws of political censorship that were used to crack down on anti-government dissent whenever it overstepped the government’s political red lines.

Part V presents an overview of different fixers’ career trajectories in the larger context of the international news economy and shifting meta-narratives about Turkey and Syria. Fixers find opportunities to contribute to the news behind the scenes, even as their counterparts in the domestic Turkish media face political and economic hardship, and even as Syria has become an inhospitable environment for journalists. Many fixers nonetheless find it difficult to challenge dominant narratives imposed by foreign reporters and news organizations, and so end up moving on to different pursuits. Turnover of both fixers and foreign reporters is continual and counterintuitively contributes to the stability of the system of international news production. The book concludes with a discussion of emergent forms of social media–based information brokerage in newsmaking in comparison with the longer-standing tradition of local fixers assisting foreign reporters.

This chapter explores the concept of press freedom. Daniel Hallin argues that the concept is especially relevant today, when consensus on its value and the kinds of institutional arrangements that can sustain it are in important respects breaking down. He draws on research exploring Latin American media systems, where press reform efforts have launched debates about whether new policies are assaults to the press or genuine efforts to democratize media and public life. While standard press freedom ratings typically show decline, specific individual cases raise questions about how exactly media systems are changing, how the distribution of power in society reflects those shifts, and what the implications of both are for democracy. Hallin suggests similar issues are at play around the world, including in North America and Western Europe, as scholars consider questions such as how to regulate the circulation of news on highly centralized social media platforms. He concludes by calling for careful consideration about the utility and limits of the concept of press freedom for scholars of media and public life.