World Press Freedom Day

This year’s official celebration of World Press Freedom Day in Tunisia brought together over 700 media professionals, freedom of expression advocates, and development experts to discuss key trends in media freedom globally. IREX again played a key role.

From May 1 to 3, for the first time, the United States hosted World Press Freedom Day, an event inspired by African journalists. Every day around the globe free expression is under threat.  For the champions of a free media, the dates, places and people may change but not the objective. Twenty years ago it was the Soviet Union’s dictatorship and South Africa’s apartheid that was disintegrating; today another revolution is transforming the Middle East.  Courageous journalists, advocates, and new media pioneers proclaimed a single persistent message at this year’s event: freedom of expression is indispensable to democratic growth.

As World Press Freedom Day approaches and interest in ongoing popular uprisings in the Middle East garner well-deserved attention in the press, we should not forget how the digital revolution continues to upend traditional notions of media (and traditional notions of state control over the media) all over the globe.

As we approach World Press Freedom Day on May 3 and consider its theme of 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers, our thoughts naturally turn to the Middle East. Over the last four months, citizens there took to the streets to demand change. We saw two seemingly entrenched regimes toppled. We see several others on the edge of collapse. And we see how news and information has broken free of the control of these regimes.