{"id":51138,"date":"2026-05-03T18:31:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T18:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/?p=51138"},"modified":"2026-05-03T18:31:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T18:31:00","slug":"a-message-from-nuj-on-world-press-freedom-day-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/51138","title":{"rendered":"A message from NUJ on World Press Freedom Day 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>03 May 2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The theme of World Press Freedom Day 2026 is \u2018Shaping a Future at Peace\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strong and independent journalism helps to promote and uphold peace, human rights, and social and economic development through providing access to reliable information,&nbsp;scrutinising&nbsp;power, and fostering dialogue. However, according to analysis by UNESCO, press freedom around the world has experienced its steepest decline since 2012, with journalists facing increasing levels of attacks and restrictions in their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week, the NUJ published&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuj.org.uk\/resource\/i-hope-you-all-get-hebdo-d-nuj-calls-for-government-and-social-media-companies-to-act-on-increasing-abuse-against-journalists.html\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">findings<\/a>&nbsp;from the first year of its&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journalistsafetytracker.org.uk\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Safety Tracker<\/a>, revealing disturbing reports of journalists facing death and rape threats, racism, physical&nbsp;attacks&nbsp;and intimidation&nbsp;while carrying out&nbsp;their&nbsp;work. The data also highlighted a worrying pattern of violent, graphic abuse directed at women journalists as well as cases involving discrimination based on protected characteristics, including race and religion. Despite the&nbsp;very serious&nbsp;nature of the reports&nbsp;submitted&nbsp;to the tracker, few respondents had informed the police, their employer, or local MP,&nbsp;suggesting&nbsp;that abuse and harassment have to an extent become&nbsp;normalised&nbsp;or seen as&nbsp;part and parcel&nbsp;of working in journalism. The NUJ has, however, called for urgent action from the government, police, social media companies, and employers to stamp out abuse against journalists in all its forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another issue has been the rise of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) &#8211; abusive legal threats and lawsuits filed to silence critical speech. Numerous journalists and media&nbsp;organisations&nbsp;have been hit with baseless legal claims, draining already stretched resources and time. The mere risk of being hit with a SLAPP can potentially cause outlets to self-censor, limiting the ability of journalists to speak truth to power.&nbsp;The NUJ, as part of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, has been calling on the UK government to use the upcoming King\u2019s Speech to introduce effective and comprehensive provisions to stop SLAPPs. This week, more than 100 peers backed the calls for new legislation in a letter to UK prime minister Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We may now be seeing a new form of SLAPP-style intimidation&nbsp;developing. Last week, the NUJ&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuj.org.uk\/resource\/foi-costs-enforcement-presents-new-slapps-threat.html\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">criticised<\/a>&nbsp;the \u2018highly unusual\u2019 decision of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) to pursue \u00a315,000 in costs against journalist and NUJ member Barnie Choudhury, following claims he acted unreasonably in making FOI requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Internationally,&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;one of the most dangerous times to be a reporter working on the frontline. Annual figures&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ifj.org\/media-centre\/reports\/detail\/ifj-killed-list-report-2025\/category\/publications\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a>&nbsp;by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) show that 128 journalists and media workers were killed in 2025. A similar number &#8211; 122 &#8211; was&nbsp;recorded&nbsp;the previous year. Despite journalists\u2019 status as civilians under&nbsp;the Geneva Convention, the data showed a high concentration of deaths in conflict zones, particularly in the Middle East. Almost half of the deaths in 2025 were in Gaza, with 56 Palestinian journalists and media workers killed. At least 235 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since 7 October 2023. The deliberate targeting and killing of journalists by Israeli forces has continued. Last week, Lebanese journalist Amal Khalili was killed and her colleague Zeinab Faraj injured, whilst reporting on&nbsp;previous&nbsp;attacks on the village of al-Tayri. The IFJ data shows&nbsp;a large number of&nbsp;journalists were killed in other conflict zones last year, including Yemen, Ukraine, and Sudan. It also revealed a sobering picture globally in relation to journalists\u2019 freedom to report with 533 journalists jailed at the end of 2025, many in the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NUJ has backed the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in urging governments to finally end clear violations of international law and to support a specific and binding UN Convention on the safety and protection of journalists. This would place a requirement on states to protect journalists in all circumstances, investigate every crime, and prosecute the perpetrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Laura Davison<\/strong>, NUJ general secretary, said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThis year\u2019s World Press Freedom Day theme on shaping a future of peace provides a hopeful message.&nbsp;Journalists play&nbsp;a vital&nbsp;role&nbsp;in&nbsp;providing reliable, trustworthy information&nbsp;people&nbsp;can trust, holding those in power to account, and enhancing democracy and social cohesion.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut those benefits can only be unlocked if journalists are able to do their jobs without the threat of being&nbsp;abused, censored,&nbsp;or killed. The NUJ will continue to campaign&nbsp;and fight&nbsp;alongside&nbsp;sister unions&nbsp;in&nbsp;the IFJ&nbsp;to&nbsp;protect journalists&nbsp;and defend&nbsp;press freedom&nbsp;in the UK, Ireland, and around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe NUJ also pays tribute to all the journalists who lost their lives in pursuit of&nbsp;truth, and&nbsp;recommits to standing up for the right of journalists to report safely and freely wherever they are.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The NUJ, led by Laura Davison and joint president Gerry Curran, will attend an event in Paris&nbsp;this evening&nbsp;to mark World Press Freedom Day ahead of the IFJ\u2019s centenary Congress from 4-7 May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuj.org.uk\/resource\/a-message-from-nuj-on-world-press-freedom-day-2026.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.nuj.org.uk\/resource\/a-message-from-nuj-on-world-press-freedom-day-2026.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The theme of World Press Freedom Day 2026 is \u2018Shaping a Future at Peace\u2019. Strong and independent journalism helps to promote and uphold peace, human rights, and social and economic development through providing access to reliable information,&nbsp;scrutinising&nbsp;power, and fostering dialogue. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/51138\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[818,466,176],"class_list":["post-51138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-journalists","tag-nuj","tag-press"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51139,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51138\/revisions\/51139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}