“…Twenty-five years before James Madison wrote the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and 250 years ago to the day, the Riksdag passed the Swedish Press Act – the world’s first law upholding freedom of the press and freedom of information.
“’Both our nations understand that information is like oxygen to a democracy. Without it, how can citizens properly assess the challenges and choices before them for collective governance? And if information is like oxygen to a democracy, the press is its lifeblood – the vehicle for synthesizing and transmitting information to every part of the body politic. …
“In Russia, the government spends at least $400 million each year for its propaganda machine of bots and trolls and factories of false content to undermine trust in independent media. Following the 2014 revolution in Ukraine, that machine tried to label the newly elected government as fascists – a categorically false but explosive claim given the country’s history.
“After Russia-backed forces downed a Malaysian airliner later that year, the Russian spin machine went into overdrive with distractions and distortions. We have only begun to grapple with consequences of when the resources of a state combine with the megaphone of the internet.
“One Russian-born journalist described it like this – ‘it’s not an information war; it’s a war on information.’ And let us be clear: a war on information is a war on democracy itself.
“That is why, the United States surged support in Europe for civil society and media most vulnerable to Russian pressure by over 50 percent to over $85 million.
“The new challenge I’ve described – of a massive state-sponsored, technologically-amplified war on truth – will not be going away. It may yet grow worse. Our answer is to fight for the truth, not through propaganda of our own, but by standing firm for free and independent media around the world.”
Sarah Sewall, U.S. undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, speaking on December 2 at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington about the challenges to freedom of the press.