Nearly half of the Afghan media has been shut down since the Taliban took over: Poll Press Freedom News

The Afghan media is on the verge of collapse due to a lack of funding. take-it-or-leave-it the Taliban in August this year.

A poll released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Afghan Journalists Association (AIJA) found that about 43 percent of the Afghan media had shut down its activities, leaving nearly 60 journalists unemployed.

The poll says the Taliban’s takeover has changed dramatically in Afghanistan media landscape. Of the 543 media outlets operating in the country at the beginning of the summer, only 312 were in operation at the end of November.

A total of 231 media outlets had to be shut down and more than 6,400 journalists lost their jobs as of mid-August.

This is one of the main reasons for the change in the media landscape economic crisis and certain restrictions imposed by the Taliban government.

On Shamshad TV, a local Kabul television channel where operations normally continue, Abid Ehssas, the channel’s news collection manager, said the media was losing revenue from its advertisements.

He added established limits many organizations have been forced to resort to self-censorship.

Women in the media industry have been particularly hard hit, with more than 84 percent of them unemployed since the Taliban took over, compared to 52 percent of men.

However, women have continued to watch television.

Afghanistan’s most popular TOLO TV continues to be employed by women’s media appearing on television.

Working at his desk, Shamshad TV journalist Shukria Niazai said he thought about quitting his job, but then decided to turn it down.

However, Niazai is not sure about the future.

The environment for journalists in the capital and other countries has become difficult.
The media must comply with the “11 journalistic rules” issued by the Taliban government’s Ministry of Information and Culture.

“Journalism Rules” pave the way for censorship and harassment, and journalists gain independence.

The Afghan National Association of Journalists has said that the situation is detrimental to the Afghan media and that the lack of access to information has made it even worse for Afghan journalists.

Journalists have always been on the front lines for the past 20 years, targeting the Taliban, ISIL (ISIS) armed groups, criminal gangs and, in some cases, the former Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani.

In 2018, there were nine Afghan journalists hil and six others were injured in a suicide attack, claimed by ISIL affiliates.

The survey also said that media cuts have had a significant impact on employment.

Of the 10,790 people (8,290 men and 2,490 women) working in the Afghan media in early August, only 4,360 (3,950 men and 410 women) were employed at the time of the survey.

Mustafa Jafari, a 30-year-old video journalist who has been working with local TV stations for the past eight years, was left unemployed as the Rah-e-Farda TV channel was shut down after the Taliban took over Kabul.

Jafari now owns a small cart and sells corn, from which he earns nearly 200 Afghans ($ 2) a day to feed his wife and two daughters. He said he had no hope for a better future.

Afghanistan is struggling with almost everything economic collapse, the closure of international funding and worrying increased hunger.

It has been a situation the frost worsened it is worth billions of dollars in the country’s foreign assets, mostly in the United States.