{"id":208277,"date":"2025-09-26T19:02:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T17:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/botswana\/botswana-basotho-support-medias-watchdog-role-but-many-doubt-that-their-media-is-free\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T19:02:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T17:02:20","slug":"botswana-basotho-support-medias-watchdog-role-but-many-doubt-that-their-media-is-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/botswana\/botswana-basotho-support-medias-watchdog-role-but-many-doubt-that-their-media-is-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Botswana: Basotho Support Media&#8217;s Watchdog Role, but Many Doubt That Their Media Is Free"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"13\">More than three in four 10 citizens support press freedom from government interference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"2\">Key findings<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>More than seven in 10 Basotho (73%) say the media should &#8220;constantly investigate and report on government mistakes and corruption.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Nearly eight in 10 (77%) insist on media freedom, while 22% endorse a government right to prevent the publication of things it disapproves of.<\/li>\n<li>In practice, only 38% of citizens say the country&#8217;s media is &#8220;somewhat free&#8221; or &#8220;completely free&#8221; to report and comment on&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202509260004.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Botswana\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/botswana\/\">Botswana<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than three in four 10 citizens support press freedom from government interference. Key findings More than seven in 10 Basotho (73%) say the media should &#8220;constantly investigate and report on government mistakes and corruption.&#8221; Nearly eight in 10 (77%) insist on media freedom, while 22% endorse a government right to prevent the publication of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":208278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2461],"tags":[258,256,18241,4718,2462,7676,6544,4959,42358,257,8225,254,6096,22038],"class_list":["post-208277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-botswana","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-basotho","tag-botswana","tag-botswana-news","tag-doubt","tag-free","tag-media","tag-medias","tag-news","tag-role","tag-south-africa-today","tag-support","tag-watchdog"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}