3 May acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom and is also a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics. Just as importantly, World Press Freedom Day is a day of support for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press freedom. It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.
The World is in the midst of the most severe clampdown on media freedoms in living memory.
The plight of Julian Assange is emblematic of the destruction of a Free Press especially in the West, as well as much of the rest of the World.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, the historic connection made between the freedom to seek, impart and receive information and the public good remains as relevant as it was at the time of its signing.
This year’s World Press Freedom Day theme “Information as a Public Good” serves as a call to affirm the importance of cherishing information as a public good, and exploring what can be done in the production, distribution and reception of content to strengthen journalism, and to advance transparency and empowerment while leaving no one behind. The theme is of urgent relevance to all countries across the world. It recognises the changing communications system that is impacting on our health, our human rights, democracies and sustainable development.
Now is the time to click here to add your event for Assange and World Press Freedom generally, let’s make sure those with the levers of governments hear our collective voices.
Promoting information as a public good is necessary to ‘build back better’ in the post-COVID world. It is a value that strongly supports with the UN Sustainable Development aspiration to advance “public access to information and fundamental freedoms” (SDG 16.10). And it constitutes the new normative context to highlight free, pluralistic and independent journalism as a springboard for progress.
Most of this text is made of excerpts from UNESCO websites.