Monday was World Press Freedom Day, a United Nations-approved “reminder to governments to respect press freedom” that most nations ignore.
The 2021 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders reports that “journalism, the main vaccine against disinformation, is completely or partly blocked in 73% of the 180 countries ranked by the organization.”
But today’s main threat to press freedom in the United States undermines the very future of our democratic system.
I refer, of course, to the growth of an alternative media universe, amplified by Donald Trump, that attracts a sizable portion of the American public into their own news silo – and feeds them a constant and hypnotic “news” diet of outright lies.
This cuts to the heart of how we define press freedom.