Public service broadcasters in democracies constantly find themselves in the crosshairs of governments. Their role is to hold politicians of the day to account without annoying them too much, occupying a unique position as a trusted news source. But public broadcasting is by its nature vulnerable. Key management positions are usually decided or heavily influenced by politicians, and governments use legislation to control their finances, even if, as with the BBC licence fee, funding is at arm's length.
 
The slide from public service broadcaster to state broadcaster can be rapid. In Hungary, one of Viktor Orban’s first acts after taking office in 2010 was to bring all public media under one organisation called MTVA and sack staff and critical journalists. Something similar now appears to be happening to Rai in Italy.

This week journalists went on strike protesting budget cuts and what they see as an increasingly repressive atmosphere under right-wing populist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. They accuse the broadcaster of “reducing Rai to being the megaphone of the Government.” The latest clash between the USIGRai union, presenters and the broadcaster happened a few weeks ago when Antonio Scurati, best-selling author of a novel about Mussolini’s rise to power, was disinvited from the Rai 3 talk show Chesarà. He was due to read out an anti-fascist monologue as part of celebrations around National Liberation from Fascism Day on 25 April. Editorial reasons were cited for his last minute non-appearance, but the show’s presenter Serena Bortone was so outraged she read out the monologue on the show herself. That day she posted on Instagram that she hadn’t been given sufficient explanation for what happened. Late this week, it emerged she had been sent a letter of disciplinary complaint for her comments.
 
Rai has been nicknamed Telemoni because of the increasing influence of Meloni’s government on the broadcaster. As Index reported last year, immediately after her election, she inserted her followers into management positions and cancelled anti-mafia author Roberto Saviano’s show. Rai has always, to some extent, come under the influence of the government of the day, but Meloni has gone faster and further than any of her predecessors. All this, of course, comes weeks after the EU Media Freedom Act passed its final hurdle -  but Brussels looks increasingly toothless faced with illiberal European governments.
 
Meanwhile, in another attack on media freedom by a democratic government, Israel has shut down all of Al Jazeera’s operations in the country and confiscated their equipment. As Index reported in early April the Knesset last month passed a law to prohibit the broadcaster and from last Sunday, TV and internet providers blocked and cut off all access. The ban lasts 45 days and can be extended. Al Jazeera has said it will continue to broadcast from Gaza and the West Bank, but it will mean Israeli audiences will no longer be able to see their programmes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s justification is that Al Jazeera incites violence against Israel and harms Israel's security, and that its owner, the Qatari state, finances and harbours Hamas leaders. Qatar rejects this accusation and has been reconsidering its relationship with Hamas as part of its role with Egypt, as mediator in the conflict. I can’t help feeling it is the Israeli public who will be the main losers of the ban, unable to see all that is happening in Gaza and the West Bank and cut off from the narrative which is being broadcast to their Arab neighbours.