The Freedom Chat: Index on Censorship’s Hannah Machlin

The Freedom Chat is an ongoing video series by Sampsonia Way featuring interviews with journalists and other media workers facing censorship and repression in their home countries. In these Q&A’s, conducted via video chat, journalists and media freedom experts talk with Sampsonia Way about press freedom, anti-free speech legislation, and exile.

To combat censorship and media abuse in Europe and the Western world, Index on Censorship and the European Federation of Journalists recently began the pilot project Mapping Media Freedom. This project, created in conjunction with Reporters Without Borders and funded by the European Commission, documents reports of abuses against the freedom of speech and press in the form of an interactive map that overlays reports on the country or city where abuses took place.

Hannah Machlin, project officer at Index on Censorship, oversees the Mapping Media Freedom program. Hannah has held various editing and research-based roles focused on the former Soviet Union, and prior to joining Index on Censorship, lived in Russia, where she conducted research on ethnic identity politics. She spoke with Sampsonia Way about the program and the state of press freedom across Europe.