Video: https://youtu.be/3Vdd3g13m0o
Welcome to day three of VEDIM! Today’s World Press Freedom Day, or just World Press Day. This couldn’t happen at a better time. *coughTrumpcough* The UN General Assembly established this date 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 and marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in 1991.
UNESCO marks World Press Freedom Day by conferring the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, created in 1997, on a deserving individual, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defense and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger.
The Prize is named in honor of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador, in Bogotá, on 17 December 1986. Cano’s writings had offended Colombia’s powerful drug barons.
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.
That’s all for today. Disclaimer, that was ALMOST word for word from Wikipedia. The page has a bit more information about all the conference locations and themes that have happened since this day was established, so if you’re interested in that, go check out the page (linked at end of the post). I’m excited about tomorrow’s post/video, I honestly don’t know how much information I’ll have in it but I’ll shut up now before I spoil anything. Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow!