Reporters without Borders is an organization that understands the importance of their capacity to democracy and the safety of people within their countries. They try to bring about fairness in the treatment of journalists. They take donations as well.
Freedom of expression and information (click here) will always be the world’s most important freedom. If journalists were not free to report the facts, denounce abuses, and alert the public, how would we resist the problem of children-soldiers, defend women’s rights, or preserve our environment?
In some countries, torturers stop their atrocious deeds as soon as they are mentioned in the media. In others, corrupt politicians abandon their illegal habits when investigative journalists publish compromising details about their activities.
Still elsewhere, massacres are prevented when the international media focuses its attention and cameras on events....
In the four years of Donald John Trump as president, the arrests and torture of journalists increased dramatically. Why? Because the USA was isolated against the responsibility of upholding democracy and the vital journalism that sustains it. Organizations that support democracy cannot enforce the freedom of free speech themselves, they need strong countries and their people to defend those freedoms.
I firmly believe the four years of the insurgent Trump clearly demonstrates a leader actively removing democratic principles and the means to uphold democracy. He hated journalists rather than being a truthteller and upholding the best of the profession. The people of the USA cannot tolerate this betrayal of freedom at home or abroad. It is important the USA continues to be a beacon of hope throughout the world.
By Trevor Timm
On May 30, 2020, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez (click here) and his camera crew were reporting from Minneapolis on the protests that had erupted in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. While Jiminez was providing his view from the ground to CNN viewers (and still standing far away from any action that could be considered dangerous), he was approached and arrested by a group of police officers.
While the incident received significant outcry (and millions of views across social media), Jimenez turned out to be only the first of almost two dozen journalists who were arrested in Minnesota that week. Over the course of the year, he was one of over 100 reporters to be arrested while covering Black Lives Matter and election-related protests.
The Jimenez arrest was the start of a disturbing trend: Across the United States, journalists are being arrested for doing their job at a truly unprecedented rate....
