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UN / WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY
STORY: UN / WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY
TRT: 01:31
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 03 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
03 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
2. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“The global challenges we face during the COVID-19 pandemic underline the critical role of reliable, verified, and universally accessible information in saving lives and building strong, resilient societies. During the pandemic, and in other crisis including the climate emergency, journalists and media workers help us navigate a fast changing and often overwhelming landscape of information, while addressing dangerous inaccuracies and falsehoods. In too many countries, they run great personal risk, including new restrictions, censorship, abuse, harassment, detention, and even death, simply for doing their jobs.”
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
3. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
03 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
4. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Free and independent journalism is our greatest ally in combatting misinformation and disinformation. The United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists aims to create a safe environment for media workers across the globe, because information is a public good.”
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
5. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
03 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Xing Qu, Deputy Director-General, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
“The upending of media business models and the concentration of power in the hands of just a few private companies, this pandemic has underlined the need for reliable information. It is independent journalism that has helped us make sense of this crisis.”
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
7. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
Marking World Press Freedom Day, Secretary-General António Guterres today (3 May) said, “the global challenges we face during the COVID-19 pandemic underline the critical role of reliable, verified, and universally accessible information in saving lives and building strong, resilient societies.”
During the pandemic, Guterres said, as well as in other crisis including the climate emergency, “journalists and media workers help us navigate a fast changing and often overwhelming landscape of information, while addressing dangerous inaccuracies and falsehoods.”
Addressing a virtual event co-organized by the Department of Global Communications (DGC) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, the Secretary-General said, “in too many countries” journalists and media workers “run great personal risk, including new restrictions, censorship, abuse, harassment, detention, and even death, simply for doing their jobs.”
He said, “free and independent journalism is our greatest ally in combatting misinformation and disinformation” and highlighted the role of the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists as it “aims to create a safe environment for media workers across the globe, because information is a public good.”
Also addressing the event, UNESCO’s Deputy Director-General Xing Qu said, “the upending of media business models and the concentration of power in the hands of just a few private companies” during the pandemic “has underlined the need for reliable information.”
He said, “it is independent journalism that has helped us make sense of this crisis.”
This year’s World Press Freedom Day theme “Information as a Public Good” serves as a call to affirm the importance of cherishing information as a public good, and exploring what can be done in the production, distribution, and reception of content to strengthen journalism, and to advance transparency and empowerment while leaving no one behind. The theme is of urgent relevance to all countries across the world. It recognizes the changing communications system that is impacting on our health, our human rights, democracies, and sustainable development.
The date marks the adoption of the landmark Windhoek Declaration for the Development of a Free, Independent and Pluralistic Press at a UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conference in the Namibian capital, in 1991.
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