World Press Freedom Day celebrated on 3 May 2019

May 6, 2019

Friday 3 May was World Press Freedom Day.

When the World Press Freedom Day Declaration was written in 1993, the “press” generally referred to “publishers”. These days we use the term more generically, to refer to freedom of the media, including social media. You can reread the 1991 Windhoek Declaration which stood at the base ( https://globalvoices.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9307106bf78cc186e924ad999&id=afb377a78b&e=da09fa0f54).

Global Voices and Advox regular collect cases of people attacked for their media work, even if they aren’t formally members of “the press”. A sample can be found in the link: https://globalvoices.org/-/topics/freedom-of-speech/?m=201904

The Committee to Protect Journalists, UNESCO and Reporters without Borders – among others – gave attention to the many journalists and human rights defenders killed for using their freedom of expression. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/04/20/the-2019-world-press-freedom-index-launched-on-18th-of-april/]

As an example of national level observance: The Herald of Zimbabwe carries long piece on the value of this day and how it applies to the new media.

https://cpj.org/2019/05/on-world-press-freedom-day-we-demand-justice.php

https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/03/world-press-freedom-day-15-journalists-killed-this-year-says-ngo

 

World Press Freedom Day: Time to reflect on new media

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.