Contrary to popular expectations we all still had to pay full price for our daily read today, despite it being World Press Freedom Day.
(And in other news, MyPE is still free every day AND every story is a front page one!)
The United Nations General Assembly declared 3 May to be World Press Freedom Day to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in 1991.
I do find it rather significant that World Press Freedom Day has some of it’s roots deeply embedded in African Soil and am mightily resisting the urge to place my right thumb on my nose and waggle the rest of my fingers at the ‘foreign media’ chanting ‘na na na na na na’.
To be a ‘traditional’ journalist in this day and age is a mighty task with pressure from; bean counters to make money, politicians to toe the ruling party line, subscribers to entertain and editors to evade being sued. Along with all this pressure a parrallel universe exists where social media and bloggers seem completely unfettered by the pressure and write from the heart. What a soul sapping sucky job it must be in a big media house where every word you write has to be self ‘censored’ and then edited by an increasing number of so-called experts far removed from the actual story.
We live in an age where the World’s media are so competitive that each word in a headline is torn apart, examined and judged first on whether it will SELL more copy and not on whether it will make the world a better place. Sensationalism has created a world more hungry for vicarious titillation than a guy in a porn movie house wearing a raincoat.
There are a minute number of journalist working for media houses that can honestly say that they are free to write and report without fear of favour or influence determining what will or will not be published. As human beings we are all swayed in one way or another in order to ‘pay the piper’.
Maybe, just maybe, World Press Freedom Day should be about how we as Joe Public deserve a press that is not swayed by the pursuit of the almighty dollar – one of the most powerful forms of terrorism known to humankind.
Modern Day journalists tend to avoid difficult, dangerous, provocative, security and government critical issues in favour of less stressful and easier forms of journalism – your life expectancy covering sport is far higher than in covering wars for instance. It is so easy today to just copy and paste the myriad of PR spins that are disseminated every day, every minute, every second into newsrooms and journalists’ brains at press conferences and during cosy luncheons with goody bags galore and images on a CD or memory stick.
Government and big business has created a myriad of PR Spin Doctor barriers with many of their ‘communication experts’ deliberately overstepping the line in a misguided effort to ‘control’ and determine the messages reported in the media (See: Pucker up Roland).
Related Reading: UNESCO World Pres Freedom Day 2011.
This is what bloggers are saying about World Press Freedom Day:
Alan Straton
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