6.1. The emergence of pro- and anti-military editorial stances The military has failed to force the media into obedience or stop the growth of defiant anti-military editorial stances since the coup. Under international human rights law, the right to freedom of expression protects the independence of the media. This includes the right of the media to take a political or adversarial editorial stance, provided that the outlet is not publicly funded or using the public broadcast spectrum.10 The public also has a right to access diverse information from a range of editorial stances. Myanmar’s media fall along a spectrum ranging from a very anti-military editorial stance to impartial to very pro-military.11 Editorial stance is not entirely defined by ownership, because, for example, an independent outlet could be editorially impartial, somewhat anti-military, or very anti-military.12 Impartial media maintained their number of posts following the coup at -3%. Somewhat anti-military and very anti-military media responded to the coup by increasing their posts by +73%. This shows that anti-military media responded to the coup by trying to fulfil the public’s right to access a diversity of information. Anti-military media responded to the coup by increasing their posts by +73% Pro-military media had the opposite response to the coup, reducing their output by -31% Somewhat pro-military and very pro-military media had the opposite response to the coup, reducing their output by -31%. This indicates that the priority of outlets with a broadly pro-military stance was to reduce information in the digital public square. Pro-military media preferred to publish nothing rather than offer editorial support to the coup. 10 While private media are free to be partisan, publicly-funded media and media that have been awarded broadcasting licenses to use the finite public spectrum have a different obligation. They must remain impartial to serve the whole population in the public interest. Under international law, the allocation of broadcast licenses should be a transparent public decision based on the public interest. In Myanmar, the military has historically gifted these channels to military-aligned companies in exchange for political support. 11 For the purposes of this report, “pro-military”, “anti-democratic”, and “anti-opposition” editorial stances are treated as a single collective category, as are “anti-military”, “pro-democratic”, and “pro-opposition” stances. While individual media outlets may prioritise a specific editorial stance on one, they share a common political alignment at a structural level for the sake of analysing trends. 12 The difference between anti-military and pro-military is not simply a matter of ownership and control. While all State-owned media are very pro-military, not all independent media are somewhat anti-military or very antimilitary. Some independent media are impartial. A minority of private, and ostensibly independent, media have a broadly pro-military editorial stance. Page 18 of 24