India Third in Journalists Deaths Due to COVID-19 Globally, Finds Media Rights Body
India is only behind Brazil and Peru. The Press Emblem Campaign has noted that several mainstream media houses have not reported the actual number of casualties.
Representative image of journalists working with face masks on. Photo: PTI
Media6 hours ago
New Delhi: India is among the top three countries in the world when it comes to deaths of journalists due to COVID-19, a Geneva-based media rights body has found.
As many as three journalists have been dying in India every day out of COVID-19 complications, the Press Emblem Campaign has reported.Â
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced alarm Wednesday (28 April) at a deterioration of press freedom in Hungary and vowed to press Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to respect pluralism.
Blinken, in a roundtable ahead of World Press Freedom Day, warned that Russia and China were seeking to “undermine the democratic and sovereign will” of Central and Eastern European nations, which he urged to hold firm to principles of openness.
“We have real concern that is shared by international press freedom advocates and many Hungarians over the decline of the pluralism and diversity and independent voices,” Blinken said in response to a question from independent Hungarian news outlet Telex.
“We have confirmation of the worst possible news (.) David Beriáin and Roberto Fraile (.) were murdered in Burkina Faso,” said Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez.
The non-government organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced the killing of Spanish journalists David Beriáin and Roberto Fraile together with Rory Young, a Zambian-born Irish conservationist. The journalists were on an anti-poaching mission in Burkina Faso.
War reporter David Beriáin and cameraman Roberto Fraile were ambushed when the government convoy they were accompanying was attacked Monday morning on the road leading to the Pama national park in the east of the country.
The writer is a barrister.
WITH World Press Freedom Day around the corner, we are offered with, if nothing else, a delicious excuse to delve into the recent past and make some sort of an assessment, however vague, of where we truly stand are the gatekeepers of our information free and independent and pluralistic, or are they controlled and gagged, and thus, perpetually afraid of what they may say, of the unspoken yet vivid lines they may cross, so much so, that rather than declaring the truth, as is their right and duty, they are compelled to whisper it, in riddles and rhymes.