Keyword: Freedom of Press

What is freedom of press? Does everybody enjoy it? After doing some research about freedom of press I found very interesting information. First of all you should know that the term means constitutional protection towards media and published materials. By constitutional protection I mean that the government has the obligation to protect and respect what the media or a person wants to publish. I found out that it was in Sweden, 1766, where the first Freedom of the Press Act was introduced. Imagine how important was for someone to speak up his or her mind and communicate through media since 1766, that people thought it necessary to make an Act and protect someone´s opinion legally.

I also discovered that now a days the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is an organization strongly dedicated to the promotion of freedom of the press as a basic human right. They created the World Press Freedom Day, which is on May 3. In this day the Organization honors all the journalists that have died or been imprisoned just for the cause of bringing daily news. Also the Organization informs the people of violations towards the right of freedom of press. The UNESCO makes all this efforts because not in every country that right is respected. The United States is a country where freedom of press is respected, but for example my country (Ecuador), is now in danger of losing that right.

Now I am going to write my own experience of what I have seen in my country regarding this subject. In Ecuador there has always been freedom of the press, but the regimes have been corrupt almost all the times, so in a lot of cases the freedom of press wasn’t respected at all. Last year, Ecuador chose a new president. This new president is a young man who gained the people by showing a spirit of change and honesty. I think he is trying to do some good things for the country, but he can´t tolerate someone speaking bad of him or his interests. Thanks to that, freedom of press is being limited every day more in my country. As Ecuador, there are many other countries where freedom of press is not taken serious or doesn’t even exist.

I think that there should be more people and more organizations that join together to fight for this right. It is so important that we live in a world where everyone´s opinion is valued and accepted. The media is the one who informs us and even if sometimes the information is manipulated or changed, we are the responsible ones of choosing what to believe and what not to. That’s why we should always know the two versions of a story, so that our opinion stays somewhere in between. Freedom of Press is a right that every country should enjoy, and we as young people should speak up for those who can and make a difference in the world, lets practice our right to freedom of press, and be thankful for having it.


Watch this interesting video about Press Freedom and its day!