Press Freedoms Shrink, Journalists Targeted – UN, Media Outlets

Press freedom is under threat in every corner of the world, with journalists being harassed, imprisoned, and assassinated on a regular basis, according to UN officials and media outlets on Tuesday.

On the eve of World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a rallying call to journalists and the media around the world.

“All our freedom depends on press freedom,” he said in a video message, referring to it as the “foundation of democracy and justice” and the “lifeblood of human rights.”

“However, freedom of the press is under attack in every corner of the world,” Guterres continued, speaking at a conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

To highlight the issue, UNESCO gave the 2023 World Press Freedom Prize to three imprisoned Iranian women, two journalists and a human rights activist.

While Guterres did not point fingers, other speakers did, such as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being held in Russia on espionage charges that he has denied.

“The fight for press freedom, for Evan’s release, is a fight for everybody’s freedom,” Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour said during the meeting.

Dozens of news outlets have condemned the charges against Gershkovich as unfounded, and US Vice President Joe Biden has called his detention “totally illegal.”

Other journalists have noted the profession’s increasing dangers.

“I come from Iran, where being a journalist is a criminal… “(and) can land you in jail, get you killed, or torture you,” Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist living in exile, stated.

• ‘Threatened by disinformation’ – In 2022, 55 journalists and four media workers were killed in the line of duty, according to Reporters Without Borders.

“Truth is under attack from disinformation and hate speech, which seek to blur the lines between fact and fiction, science and conspiracy,” Guterres said.

Journalists, he claimed, “are routinely harassed, intimidated, detained, and in prisons.”

Others expressed similar worries, including the head of UNESCO, which is organising a commemorative gathering at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

According to Audrey Azoulay, the digital age is altering the entire information landscape, making “professional, free, independent journalism” more important than ever.

She stated that harassing and intimidating journalists was unacceptable.

“We’ve arrived at a new fork in the road,” she explained. “Our current path leads us away from informed public debates… a path towards ever greater polarisation.”

According to A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, journalists and freedom of information are threatened by more than just physical repression.

“The internet has also unleashed an avalanche of misinformation, propaganda, punditry, and clickbait that has now overwhelmed our information ecosystem… hastening the decline in societal trust,” he warned.

“When the free press erodes, democratic erosion almost always follows.”

Censorship has also become increasingly widespread, according to Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International.

“Sadly, censorship has become the default position of many governments in terms of controlling the knowledge of their societies,” she explained.

Iranian journalists Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloufar Hamedi, who helped reveal Mahsa Amini’s death in jail in September, and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi received the UNESCO prize.