World Press Freedom Day Starts at Home

Congress Should Celebrate It by Passing the PRESS Act

​Like many declarations of the United Nations, the 31st anniversary of World Press Freedom Day is more aspirational than reality in many UN member countries.
 
In some countries, journalists are routinely killed for reporting on corrupt politicians and police agencies. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ says that violence is also common among journalists covering local environmental issues like illegal mining, logging, poaching and other acts of “environmental vandalism.”
 
Much of the repression comes from sophisticated state actors. In China, imprisoned Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai stayed in that jurisdiction to bravely stare down official repression after his newspaper, Apple Daily, was shuttered. In Russia, Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal remains held on specious charges of spying for the CIA by Vladimir Putin’s judicial puppets.
 
“Journalism should not be a crime anywhere on the earth,” President Biden declared today. We agree and would only add, for unfortunately necessary emphasis, “including the United States.”
   
While 49 U.S. states have press shield laws, there is no federal law that protects the notes and sources of a journalist from being seized by a federal prosecutor. Many U.S. reporters have gone to jail rather than bow to a prosecutor’s demand to reveal his or her sources. All the more reason to celebrate World Press Freedom in America by asking Congress to get behind the PRESS Act, which would extend these basic protections to the federal government.
 
“If you cannot offer a source a promise of confidentiality as a journalist, your toolbox is empty,” celebrated investigative journalist Catherine Herridge told members of a House Judiciary subcommittee. “No whistleblower is coming forward, no government official with evidence of misconduct or corruption. And what that means is that it interrupts the free flow of information to the public … Journalism is about an informed electorate, which is the bedrock of our democracy.”
 
We urge Congress to honor the First Amendment and the freedom of the press by passing the PRESS Act.