This report is an annual moment of reflection for the Samir Kassir Foundation (SKF). Each year, it allows us to look back and ahead at once: to assess what has changed, what has endured, and what new demands are being placed on journalism, freedom of expression, and cultural freedom. In 2025, this exercise carries an added difficulty.

We are publishing this report at a moment when tragic developments have already begun to unfold in 2026. That reality inevitably shapes the way we read the year that preceded it. It is therefore necessary to examine 2025 on its own terms, and to recognize that many of its developments were already pointing toward the dangers that have since deepened.

Each year, we emerge from this reflection with the conviction that the Foundation has become better equipped to confront the challenges facing journalism and public freedom. SKF has remained relentless in expanding its tools, sharpening its expertise, and adapting its methods as an organization and as a team of professionals. Yet a serious gap remains between the pace at which the Foundation can scale up its capabilities and even reinvent itself at times, and the pace at which the world is changing.

At one stage, disinformation appeared to be the defining threat to journalism and information integrity. In response, we mobilized the full range of capacities available to us: integrating technology and artificial intelligence (AI) into our research practices, upgrading our training methodologies, and diversifying partnerships so that the challenge could be met with depth and seriousness. Soon after, the crisis evolved again. Mass violence against journalists surged, with killings reaching a record high, forcing SKF to strengthen and expand its protection work with a new level of urgency. The conclusion is as stark as it is frustrating: humanity, including parts of the world long assumed to be more democratic, is moving at alarming speed away from many of the social and political gains of the past century. Intolerance is expanding and truth is losing ground. Cruelty is resurfacing in places where the rule of law, greater openness, and institutional maturity should have prevailed.

This raises one of the most pressing questions for our community: what can journalists do, by virtue of the principles of their profession, to resist the reactionary forces reshaping politics, international relations, and public life? What role can they still play in defending reason, truth, dignity, and democratic values in a world increasingly organized around manipulation, violence, and rejection of facts? Yet before that question comes another, even more immediate one: how can journalists and media organizations simply survive this rising tide? Disinformation is no longer only the product of coordinated campaigns; it is also the consequence of a broader institutionalization of contempt for truth. Likewise, the silencing and intimidation of journalists, once associated primarily with autocratic and more unstable political systems, are now becoming normalized in societies that long claimed to embody stronger democratic standards.

This global political shift poses a challenge to journalism on multiple levels. Funding for independent media has been severely cut. Increasing militarization has redirected major streams of public funding away from development and international cooperation. Trade tensions and economic uncertainty are pushing governments to cut external support and reallocate resources inward. Independent journalism, which remains heavily dependent on development financing, is paying a steep price, alongside civil society organizations more broadly. However, the threat to independent journalism exceeds financial precarity and puts into question the very purpose of journalism as a profession and its role in public life.

The scale of disinformation within the media and information ecosystem has made the production and consumption of knowledge far more fragile. At the same time, advances in AI have introduced risks that touch the essence of journalistic practice.

Reporting facts has rarely been more difficult as journalism is no longer a syndicated profession guided by ethical and professional principles and a universal code of conduct. Objective, empirical truth now competes in the public sphere with many, often manufactured, versions of reality designed to distort, inflame, and dominate.

These are not alternative interpretations emerging from legitimate pluralism. They are narratives engineered to reshape perception in ways that serve power, vanity, and ideological mobilization. In such a moment, journalism is both profoundly endangered and urgently needed. Which must make us think, and dig deep, to find the courage and the tools to push back. The agenda, moving forward, is to reclaim the values of truth, freedom, democracy and the most recently depreciated decency and reason. These are the cornerstones of our vision for sustainable development and a humanist future.