A private TV network, Kabul News, has closed down due to media restrictions and “other issues”.
A Kabul News employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Amu that “besides other issues, restrictions on the media outlet was one of the key reasons that ended up in halting its operations.”
After the fall of the republic government in August 2021, Kabul News let go 60 employees, including women, and had been operating with only a handful of staff.
Founded in 2012, former president Hamid Karzai’s head of administrative affairs, Karim Khurram, ran the TV station.
One employee of the TV network said however, that they might continue with their digital platforms, including the website and social media pages.
The closure of Kabul TV comes in the wake of dozens of media outlets closing across the country, following the fall of the previous government.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in the year since the Taliban took power, Afghanistan lost 39.59% of its media outlets and 59.86% of its journalists, especially women journalists – three quarters of whom are now unemployed.
An RSF survey found that in August 2021, Afghanistan had 547 media outlets. One year later, 219 had closed down.
And of the 11,857 journalists tallied prior to 15 August 2021, there were only 4,759 by August 2022.
Women journalists have been impacted most – 76.19% of them have lost their jobs.
RSF reported that the Kabul region, which had the biggest number of media outlets – 133 – has been hit hard by the regime change and has lost nearly half of them. In August this year, there were only 69 outlets still operating.
