It’s World Press Freedom Day but Things are Getting Worse

The United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 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 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also marked the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, a statement of free press principles put together by newspaper journalists in Namibia thirty-three years ago in 1991.

African journalist participants in the 1991 Windhoek  conference.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also marks World Press Freedom Day each year by bringing together media professionals, press freedom organizations, and UN agencies to assess the state of press freedom worldwide and discuss solutions for addressing challenges. Each conference is centered on a theme related to press freedom, including good governance, media coverage of terrorism, impunity, and the role of media in post-conflict countries.

This year the conference begins today in Santiago, Chile.  A Press for the Planet: protecting journalists and scientists in defense of the environment is the theme this year.  

So how is it going on the press freedom front these days?  Well the needle on the dial hovers between not so good and terrible.  In fact the press, both traditional and emerging digital media, is under greater pressure in more nations than at any time since the Second World War.

According to the annual round-up compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF):

…the number of journalists killed worldwide in connection with their work—45 as of December 1, 2023—is the lowest since 2002, despite the wars in the Middle East.  In Gaza, at least 13 journalists have been killed because of their work as journalists since the war began between Israel and Hamas, a total that rises to 56 if we include all journalists killed in the Gaza Strip, whether or not in the line of their work. Worldwide, 521 journalists are currently detained on arbitrary grounds linked to their profession (down 8.4% from 2022).

But that 2023 dip may be illusional based on incomplete records especially in active war zones and heavily censored accounts by authoritarian regimes including Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Just yesterday, May 1, the Pen America Freedom to Write Index reported that the number of writers jailed in China has surpassed 100, with nearly half imprisoned for online expression. With the total number of people imprisoned globally for exercising their freedom of expression estimated to be at least 339, China accounts for nearly one-third of the world’s jailed writers. There are 107 people behind bars because of their published statements in China, more than any other country on the index.

Meanwhile independent and dissident journalists are persecuted in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.  Israel suppresses virtually all independent Palestinian media, routinely detains and jails journalists and has targeted international reporters covering raids, destruction of Palestinian homes, and protests.   China stifles independent voices and shuts down web sites and social media.  

This map of rankings for press freedom was from 2017--Deep red very serious, orange serious, yellow notable problems, light blue satisfactory, dark blue good; Since then the U.S. has slipped to problematic.

In addition intimidation is a rising problem that deters many from freely reporting the news.  In 2020 Courtney Radsch, of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said anti-press rhetoric has become endemic in many countries especially the Philippines and the U.S.  Social media and the internet have added to the issues journalists face.  “Online harassment and its very real threats to journalists, especially women, has compounded the already challenging environment”, she said.

Don’t think America is immune.  During the Trump years press freedom here plummeted relative to Western democracies.  Death threats to American reporters and news organizations skyrocketed as Trump beat his fake news/enemy of the people drum and the far right wing and White nationalist forces listened.  Several news organizations were the victims of bomb scares,  Reporters were attacked and ruffed up at several rallies.  Republican state legislatures have enacted a variety of laws meant to either prevent coverage of protests, corruption, and vote suppression.  Reporters have been criminalized for photographing or filming factory farming and slaughter operations.  They have also been stripped of immunities for protecting sources as have whistle blowers.

Although the  Biden administration works to improve conditions on the Federal level, it will be a slow and arduous process.  Meanwhile police targeted journalists for physical attack—gassing, Tasering, shooting with rubber bullets, and beating reporters covering Black Lives Matter protests in several cities, notably  Minneapolis.

Largely due to the deteriorating situation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) downgraded the  ranking in its World Press Freedom Index yet again this year.

It’s a tough time for journalists, but they continue to do their jobs despite obstacles.

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market and Right Comrade, It’s the Hour of the Garden By Pablo Neruda--National Poetry Month 2024

 

Pablo Neruda.

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature.  Elected as a Communist Party Senator, he was forced into hiding and exile from 1948 to ’52.  Despite this and continuing persecution, he is considered the national poet of Chile and his works are still popular and influential.  Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez called him “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language”, and the critic Harold Bloom, an instinctive conservative and self-appointed defender of the Western literary canon, included Neruda as one of the writers central to the Western tradition.

In 1970, Neruda was nominated as a candidate for the Chilean presidency but ended up giving his support to Salvador Allende, who later won the election and was inaugurated in 1970 as Chile’s first democratically elected socialist head of state.  Allende appointed Neruda  ambassador to France, from 1970 to 1972.  In Paris, his health began to deteriorate and he was forced to retire at home.  As General Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état of 1973 unfolded, Neruda was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Shortly afterwards his home was searched by troops and his books and papers were destroyed.  Many expected him to be arrested and perhaps murdered despite his international literary acclaim. 

Neruda's public funeral.  The blonde woman behind the casket was his wife, Matilde Urrutia Cerda.

It was originally reported that on  September 23, 1973 died of heart failure at Santiago’s Santa María Clinic.   But in  March 2015 an official Chilean Interior Ministry report prepared in for the court investigation into Neruda’s death, “he was either given an injection or something orally which caused his death six-and-a-half hours later.”  He had been preparing to fly to Mexico to establish a government in exile.

Neruda’s funeral took place with a massive police presence, and mourners took advantage of the occasion for the last great public protest against the new regime.

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

 

Here,  

 among the market vegetables,

 this torpedo

 from the ocean  

 depths,  

 a missile  

 that swam,

 now  

 lying in front of me

 dead.

 

Surrounded

 by the earth’s green froth  

 —these lettuces,

 bunches of carrots—

 only you  

 lived through

 the sea’s truth, survived

 the unknown,

 the unfathomable

 darkness, the depths  

 of the sea,

 the great  

 abyss,

 le grand abîme,

 only you:  

 varnished

 black-pitched  

 witness

 to that deepest night.

 

Only you:

 dark bullet

 barreled  

 from the depths,

 carrying  

 only  

 your  

 one wound,

 but resurgent,

 always renewed,

 locked into the current,

 fins fletched

 like wings

 in the torrent,

 in the coursing

 of

 the

 underwater

 dark,

 like a grieving arrow,

 sea-javelin, a nerveless  

 oiled harpoon.

 

Dead

 in front of me,

 catafalqued king

 of my own ocean;

 once  

 sappy as a sprung fir

 in the green turmoil,

 once seed

 to sea-quake,

 tidal wave, now

 simply

 dead remains;

 in the whole market

 yours  

 was the only shape left

 with purpose or direction

 in this  

 jumbled ruin

 of nature;

 you are  

 a solitary man of war

 among these frail vegetables,

 your flanks and prow

 black  

 and slippery

 as if you were still

 a well-oiled ship of the wind,

 the only

 true

 machine

 of the sea: unflawed,

 undefiled,  

 navigating now

 the waters of death.

 

—Pablo Neruda

Translated by  Robin Robertson

 

This was Neruda’s final poem composed in his Santiago home shortly after the coup d’état and days before his final hospitalization.

 

 Chile's Presidential Palace under attack with President Salvadore Allende inside during the 1973.  Allende died in the final stand.

 

Right, comrade, it’s the hour of the garden

 

Right, comrade, it’s the hour of the garden

and the hour up in arms, each day

follows from flower or blood:

our time surrenders us to an obligation

to water the jasmines

or bleed to death in a dark street:

virtue or pain blows off

into frozen realms, into hissing embers,

and there never was a choice:

heaven’s roads,

once the by-ways of saints,

are jammed now with experts.

 

Already the horses have vanished.

 

Heroes hop around like toads,

mirrors live out emptinesses

because the party is happening somewhere else,

wherever we aren’t invited

and fights frame themselves in doorjambs.

 

That’s why this is the last call,

the tenth clear

ringing of my bell:

to the garden, comrade, to the pale lily,

to the apple tree, to the intransigent carnation,

to the fragrance of lemon blossoms,

and then to the ultimatums of war.

 

Ours is a lank country

and on the naked edge of her knife

our frail flag burns.

 

—Pablo Neruda