On World Press Freedom Day, Journalism Is Under Fire

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Joshua Scheer

On this World Press Freedom Day, we honor not only the courage of journalists who risk everything to tell the truth, but also the relentless work of organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists, whose documentation continues to expose the global assault on press freedom. From arbitrary detention and criminal prosecution to forced disappearance and targeted killings, the war on the press is no longer abstract—it is systematic, global, and deadly. Journalists covering war, occupation, corruption, and state violence are being silenced at an alarming rate. As data emerging earlier this year made painfully clear, nearly half of the journalists killed in 2025 were killed in connection with Israel’s war on Gaza, underscoring a crisis that demands not only remembrance, but accountability. To defend a free press today is to defend the public’s right to know—and, increasingly, the lives of those who make that right possible.

And unlike so many messages tied to journalism today, this is not simply another appeal for donations. It is a recognition that independent media is facing a structural crisis. Some of the most essential outlets doing fearless public-interest journalism are under constant financial pressure. We regularly publish and amplify work from CounterPunch, Truthout, Common Dreams, Drop Site News, and The Zateo, The Grayzone just to name a few—outlets doing work many corporate institutions will not touch.

Too many journalists and independent publications are being pushed toward individualized, market-driven platforms like Substack simply to survive. If we believe journalism is a public good—and democracy depends on it—then we need to build something better: new funding models, new institutions, and new ways to sustain the reporting the powerful would rather the public never see.

Press freedom is your freedom. It always has been. Long before the printed word, before newspapers, broadcasts, or digital platforms, communities depended on storytellers, griots, and town criers to carry truth, memory, and warning from one generation to the next. The struggle to protect those who bear witness is as old as human society itself.

Here are some of our stories on press freedom, along with an appeal from Amnesty International, which—like the Committee to Protect Journalists—continues doing the essential work of protecting those who risk their lives to tell the truth. At a time when journalists across the world are being hunted, imprisoned, disappeared, and killed, their work has never been more necessary.

This is especially true for the reporters, photographers, and documentarians helping the world understand what is happening in Gaza. Without their courage, much of what the public has witnessed would remain hidden, denied, or whitewashed.

There is so much more to say. But press freedom cannot be something we remember only on one symbolic day each year. It has to be defended every day—because without freedom of speech, without independent journalism, without those willing to document power and speak truth in the face of it, none of our freedoms remain secure.

So enjoy your Sunday and World Press Freedom Day.. More work begins tomorrow. Fight the power. And remember: the power of the pen still matters—now joined by the power of the cellphone camera.

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