Showing posts with label World Press Freedom Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Press Freedom Day. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Time for journalists to fight back, not play party hosts; The Washington Post, April 30, 2018

Dana Milbank, The Washington Post; Time for journalists to fight back, not play party hosts

"Olivier Knox, the incoming president, has said he wants to make the dinner “boring.”

How about better than boring? Move the dinner back a week, to honor World Press Freedom Day, and cancel the comedians. Instead, read the names of journalists killed doing their jobs over the year; people such as Daphne Caruana Galizia , who reported on government corruption in Malta, killed on Oct. 16, when the car she was driving exploded; and Miroslava Breach Velducea , who reported on politics and crime in Mexico, shot eight times and killed on March 23, 2017, when leaving her home with one of her children. Also, read the names of some jailed journalists and their time behind bars: Turkey’s Zehra Dogan, 323 days; Egypt’s Alaa Abdelfattah, 1,282 days ; China’s Ding Lingjie, 221 days; Kyrgyzstan’s Azimjon Askarov, 2,877 days; Congo’s Ghys FortunĂ© DombĂ© Bemba , 475 days.

Media companies and personalities, instead of hosting glitzy parties, would make contributions to and solicit funds for groups that protect the free press. And they would pledge to devote more air time and column inches to exposing abuses of press freedoms at home and abroad. The Post did this, successfully, during my colleague Jason Rezaian’s imprisonment in Iran. We should all pledge to be unabashed advocates: to shine light on the journalists languishing in prisons, the unsolved murders of journalists and the erosion of press freedom at home."

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

World Press Freedom Day Is A Terrifying Reminder Of What Reporters Could Face If Trump Is Elected; Huffington Post, 5/3/16

Alana Horowitz Satlin, Huffington Post; World Press Freedom Day Is A Terrifying Reminder Of What Reporters Could Face If Trump Is Elected:
"f the way Donald Trump and his supporters have treated journalists during the campaign is any indication, the media will be anything but free if he wins the presidency.
World Press Freedom Day, commemorated on Tuesday, comes just days after a GQ writer was hit with a barrage of antisemitic attacks following the publication of an article that criticized Melania Trump’s skincare line."