At the international gathering in Riga, Latvia, that marked World Press Freedom Day this week, journalists from many countries acknowledged the new reality of mass surveillance online, and its massive impact on journalists’ ability to hold governments to account. William Horsley, the AEJ’s Media Freedom Representative, draws conclusions from the Riga meeting.
And he highlights the appeal by the Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste, who was jailed in Egypt for more than a year, for the media industry to be bolder in investigating and reporting on the rising toll of journalists’ killings and attacks against the press – because otherwise journalists in many countries will go on being jailed, attacked, injured or killed with impunity.