You may love the press you may hate them but they bring us the news and help keep us informed. Especially the uplifting stories my local News have been broadcasting about how many simple local people are doing all sorts of different things to help out in their local communities. It has made a very pleasant change to the usual doom and gloom of the news.

World Press Freedom Day gives people the chance to pay tribute to media professionals who risked or lost their lives in the line of duty with an awards night to honour those who risked their lives to bring us up to date news from around the world.

The World Press Freedom Prize

The World Press Freedom Prize is awarded to honour the work of an individual or an organization defending or promoting freedom of expression, especially if it puts the individual’s life at risk. The award is named for Guillermo Cano, a Colombian journalist murdered in 1986 after denouncing drug barons.

World Press Freedom Day was established by the United Nations in December 1993 and has been celebrated ever since, it has much deeper roots. It underlying ethos began with Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights which states everyone “has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Interestingly enough in the UK and many other countries you can be arrested for expressing an opinion both if it inciting illegal activities such as riots or terrorist activities, quite rightly but also if it happens to be an opinion which is no longer held to be “politically correct”, even if it was acceptable to society as recently as 20 years ago. Some older people feel that they are no longer allowed to express their opinion. I wonder where that freedom has gone and if it will every come back.