In the middle of the Golden Week Holidays, newspapers around the world recognized their own special day on May 3: World Press Freedom Day. Officially established in 1993 by the U.N. General Assembly and organized annually by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), the day offers an annual report on the issue of freedom of the press around the world. This year, though, there was little celebration and considerable alarm.
Oppression of the media is worse in every region of the world, according to WAN's report and another from Freedom House, an organization supported by private donations and the U.S. government. Of the roughly 200 countries covered in the Freedom House study, only one-third were rated "free." The other two-thirds were "partly free" or "not free."
The deterioration of journalistic working conditions in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America was particularly rapid. Meanwhile, WAN listed 70 journalists killed in 2008. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit organization founded in 1981, documented 125 journalists jailed last year.