Today is World Press Freedom Day, and The Times is lending its pages to amplifying the cause of bringing home the hundreds of missing or jailed journalists across the globe. "The need for factual and reliable information has never been greater," write the Times's publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, and its executive editor, Joe Kahn, alongside the leaders of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, in an open letter published Friday morning, "but threats to journalists around the world are more prevalent than ever." Russia has wrongfully detained Evan Gershkovich, a former Times colleague now at The Wall Street Journal, for more than a year. Austin Tice, a schoolmate of mine and freelance journalist for the Washington Post, has been held in Syria for 11 years, his parents allowed very little to no information about his condition. Unfortunately, there are many like them. Since Oct. 7, at least 97 journalists, the majority of them Palestinians, have been killed amid the Middle East conflict. And Israel continues to deny reliable access to Gaza to facilitate international, independent coverage, as Jodie Ginsberg, the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, recently detailed for Times Opinion. In addition to Evan's case, the editorial board in March highlighted Vladimir Putin's attempts to suppress critical reporting on his regime, including the plight of Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist and dual American-Russian citizen. The charges against both are a travesty, as the board says, and the U.S. government should continue to do everything in its power to help. Of course, sometimes suppression of independent media is more subtle. Consider the smear campaign against Gustavo Gorriti, a storied Peruvian journalist, who now faces charges in an apparent retaliation for reporting on corruption. Or the imprisonment of the Guatemalan journalist José Zamora on what press freedom groups say are false charges meant to muzzle him. Hong Kong, once a rare beacon for press freedom in Asia, is a changed place after China passed its strict national security law in 2020. The newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai and others have been imprisoned on trumped-up charges such as sedition since. As Lai's son wrote in Times Opinion last September, "Authorities in the city are showing the world they no longer tolerate the very things that once made it so great: free speech, the rule of law and a love for liberty." It's a message that rings painfully loud in far too many places today. Here's what we're focusing on today:
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Friday, May 3, 2024
Opinion Today: Protect journalists, everywhere
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