From Russia to India, it has never been more dangerous to pursue the truth. But unity and new tactics bring hope
Should we be celebrating press freedom at all today? Last year a record number of journalists were jailed worldwide. Five out of every six of us live in a country where press freedom has declined over the past five years; some 400 journalists have been killed in the same time frame. Vladimir Putin has crushed the last vestiges of independent journalism inside Russia. And from India to the Philippines to the UK, there’s been a sharp rise in coordinated, misogynist attacks against female journalists.
There seem few causes for celebration, then. And yet this year, I’m daring to believe there’ll be some cautious reasons for hope.
Mary Fitzgerald is director of expression at the Open Society Foundations, and former editor-in-chief of openDemocracy
