{"id":273679,"date":"2019-04-21T06:01:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-21T10:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CAIiEFYvNFEJ_ok3r2Mlw68fmvAqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowjtSUCjC30XQwzqe5AQ?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-09-13T11:22:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:22:25","slug":"washington-post-ethiopias-freer-media-also-fanned-ethnic-tension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/273679","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post: Ethiopia\u2019s freer media also fanned ethnic tension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In April 2019, The Washington Post reported that after years of repression, Ethiopia\u2019s media opening under Abiy Ahmed was also <strong>fanning ethnic tension<\/strong>, with critics saying a newly polarized press was making politics worse.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-295834\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/David-Kaye.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Washington Post: Ethiopia\u2019s freer media also fanned ethnic tension\" \/>\n<p>The feature followed journalists working from half-empty offices who had gained room to publish, then watched hate speech, partisan channels, and rumor markets grow alongside legitimate reporting. Freedom without institutions is not the same as a public sphere.<\/p>\n<p>Abiy Ahmed\u2019s government harvested praise abroad for unblocking websites and releasing journalists, then faced the harder test of regulating violence-inciting content without sliding back into censorship. That dilemma never left.<\/p>\n<p>As press-freedom reference, the WaPo file still cuts. Later arrests of journalists under Abiy Ahmed\u2019s regime make the 2019 warning read less like foreign fretting and more like an early diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/africa\/after-years-of-repression-ethiopias-media-is-free--and-fanning-the-flames-of-ethnic-tension\/2019\/04\/20\/c4573f5a-5a4b-11e9-98d4-844088d135f2_story.html\">The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After years of repression, Ethiopia\u2019s media is free \u2014 and fanning the flames of ethnic tension&nbsp;&nbsp;The Washington PostADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia \u2014 From a collection of modest offices in a half-empty high rise, one of Ethiopia&#8217;s most prominent journal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":295834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/David-Kaye.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-19cb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273679"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601049,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273679\/revisions\/601049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}