• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, August 14, 2015

The rise of social media has given ordinary people living under repressive regimes new ways to communicate, enabling them to express dissent and organize protests, while bloggers hold governments and organizations to account, often at risk to themselves.

But despite all the shifts in the media landscape over the last10 years, one thing hasn’t changed: newspapers, those traditional tribunes of the public interest, are still indispensable sources of critical reporting and opinion in the fight against tyranny.

Nothing demonstrates this better than the attempts of corrupt and undemocratic governments around the world to silence newspapers in recent weeks, testimony to the fear independent voices inspire in the halls of power.

In July, the government of Malaysia suspended publication of two newspapers and blocked a news Web site after they reported on corruption allegations against Prime Minister Najib Razak. That triggered protests in the capital Kuala Lumpur on August 8, condemning the violation of press freedom and demanding that the government lift the bans. Another, larger protest is scheduled for August 29.

In South Sudan, earlier this week, the government closed two newspapers after the published editorials calling for the country’s president, Salva Kiir, to sign a peace treaty with rebels that would end the civil war that has wracked the world’s newest country almost since its birth.

Agents from the government’s National Security Services closed one newspaper, Al Rai, because of its alleged sympathy with the rebels. The closures prompted protests from the Committee to Protect Journalists, whose East African representative, Tom Rhodes, stated: “The crackdown presents an ongoing trend where security forces work in near total autonomy and in disregard to the law.”

Of course, not all the opinions expressed in newspapers will strike American readers as enlightened. In Iran, the government of the Islamic Republic has closed a number of newspapers because they criticized concessions made by the regime in the recent negotiations over its nuclear program.

The nationalist newspapers published editorials saying the negotiators caved to foreign influence. The government responded by suspending a weekly newspaper, 9 Dey, and warned a conservative daily, Kayhan, to rein in its criticisms.