These are testing times for the government and the media as COVID-19 continues to spread. The government seems rather unwilling to let critical voices have their say about the way in which the crisis is being dealt with. There is an explicit expectation that the media’s coverage should be “positive” and follow the official line. While much of the media, corporate-owned as it is, has surrendered, a small section is courageously following journalistic ethics. This article examines authoritarian tendencies that undermine the autonomy of journalism as an important platform of the public sphere.
