Following editorials in some 350 newspapers across the United States Thursday calling for an end to attacks on the press by President Donald Trump, the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming the vital and indispensable role of the free press.
Join journalists across the US who are asking the public to stand up for their rights to free speech and an open government. While the effort started as a campaign by the Boston Globe to ask the President of the United States to stop attacking the news media, Donald Trump’s attacks on the press aren’t ultimately about the press. It’s about the people.
The increasing lack of credibility and growing political meddling in Romanian mainstream media in recent years has resulted in many journalists leaving these outlets and starting their own independent sites. Some of these initiatives support themselves by relying on crowdfunding. But is it viable in the long term?
As protests grip Slovakia in the wake of the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and harassment of his colleague Pavla Holcova, the Global Reporting Centre’s Peter W. Klein writes this open letter to the Prime Minister of Slovakia urging him to respect press freedom and the rights of Holcova and all the journalists who are doing their jobs.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from May 14 to 20 finds @FinancialTimes highlighting @NASA data on high risk drought areas across the globe, @infogram juxtaposing press freedom with global peace rankings and @BBCNews showing how smuggling mobile phones is a rampant problem in English and Welsh prisons.
Press self-censorship in Hong Kong has been deteriorating as businessmen behind media organisations increasingly use the press as their business tool rather than for public service. After seeing the public’s disillusionment and distrust of the media grow, investigative journalist Don Ng decided to kickstart FactWire, a back-to-basics news service that focuses on long-term investigations.
At a time when the news media is under unprecedented attack, and the need for watchdog reporting has never been greater, we hope you will join GIJN today in marking World Press Freedom Day (#WorldPressFreedomDay). This is the 25th celebration of WPFD, but despite the years of meetings and proclamations by its sponsors UNESCO and others, conditions are getting worse, not better, for journalists around the world.
The real heroes are reporters who are out there taking risks by reporting the truth, says US historian Timothy Snyder. Support them by subscribing to newspapers and reading and sharing good journalism. And next time you meet a journalist, try thanking them for their service.
An arsonist attempted to burn down the Rivne Investigative Reporting Agency in western Ukraine on Thursday evening, according to staff members and associates. An unknown attacker entered the newsroom’s first floor office, doused it with a flammable liquid and set it ablaze. Fortunately, no injuries have been reported.
A study by Iraqi professor Dr Bushra Al-Hamdani found that journalists in Iraq are often targeted by either pro-government militias or militant opposition groups and have little protection against threats. They also face legal obstacles and a lack of government transparency.
