There is growing tension over the reliability of information, and Agence France-Presse (AFP) is in the thick of it. In a climate of global polarization and a surge in authoritarian regimes, the agency's management recorded 25 serious incidents involving AFP journalists in the first half of 2025 – more than during the entire year of 2024. "This may be one of the most difficult periods our profession has faced in the past 50 years, if not since World War II," said Phil Chetwynd, the French agency's news director. With 2,600 staff members and content distributed in six languages, AFP is one of the world's three leading news agencies, alongside Reuters and Associated Press.

Violence against media professionals has risen. In the Sahel region, several of AFP's journalists were forced to leave Burkina Faso and Mali because they could no longer work safely. In Gaza, AFP's offices were destroyed by Israeli tank fire, and all local staff lost their homes in an area where, according to Reporters Without Borders and the United Nations, between 210 and 247 journalists have been killed since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.

In Eastern Europe, following Hungary's example – where Prime Minister Viktor Orban turned nearly all media outlets into propaganda mouthpieces – Slovakia under Robert Fico saw a surge in cyberharassment targeting fact-checkers, who are employed by AFP. There was a surge in death threats there, just as in Serbia and Germany.

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