Kathmandu: As world leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly’s High-Level Week, a coalition of 11 prominent economists, including Nobel Prize winners Joseph E. Stiglitz and Daron Acemoğlu, have issued a global appeal to protect and invest in public interest media, warning that its decline poses a threat not only to democracy but also to economic prosperity.
In a statement titled The Economic Imperative of Investing in Public Interest Media, the High-Level Panel on Public Interest Media, convened by the Forum on Information and Democracy, argues that reliable and independent journalism underpins modern economies much like central banks anchor financial systems.
“Public interest media play an essential role in guaranteeing this information supply and ensuring its quality,” the panel wrote. “They are like the central banks of the informational economy: providing the confidence in the system that is necessary for it to function.”
The economists warn that traditional business models are collapsing as revenues shift to digital platforms, leaving independent outlets vulnerable to state repression, AI-driven disinformation, and the market dominance of Big Tech. Meanwhile, autocratic regimes are pouring resources into propaganda, while democratic governments have been slow to provide support.
The panel is urging governments to increase investment in free and independent media, nationally and internationally, including through mechanisms like a digital services tax, and adopt new ‘information industrial policies’ to regulate the media ecosystem, reduce the information divide, and safeguard access to reliable news.
Highlighting the risks of the ongoing “digitalized industrial revolution,” the economists stressed that artificial intelligence, while transformative, cannot by itself ensure inclusive economic growth or address inequality without a strong foundation of trustworthy information.
“It is high time that the true value of public interest media be recognized,” the statement declares, calling on governments to use their full range of economic tools to prevent further decline.
The group’s recommendations are expected to take center stage at the International High-Level Conference on Information Integrity and Independent Media, to be co-organized by the Forum on Information and Democracy and the International Fund for Public Interest Media in Paris on October 29–30, 2025.
Among the signatories are influential scholars from institutions such as MIT, Princeton, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, and Columbia University, alongside international policy leaders including Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili and Dr. Vera Songwe.
The Forum on Information and Democracy — founded in 2019 by Reporters Without Borders and supported by 56 countries — has been at the forefront of global policy initiatives addressing disinformation, AI’s impact on information ecosystems, and media sustainability.
With democracy under pressure worldwide, the panel argues that investing in public interest media is not only a political and social necessity but an economic imperative.
