04 May Grass­roots Radio cel­e­brates the World Press Free­dom Day 2020

The Grass­roots Radio project is proud to cel­e­brate the World Press Free­dom Day, whose over­ar­ch­ing theme this year is Jour­nal­ism with­out Fear or Favour. 

The World Press Free­dom Day was pro­claimed by the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly in Decem­ber 1993 fol­low­ing the rec­om­men­da­tion of UNESCO’s Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence. On the occa­sion of this year’s anniver­sary, UNESCO claims that 3 May acts as a reminder to gov­ern­ments of the need to respect their com­mit­ment to press free­dom and is also a day of reflec­tion among media pro­fes­sion­als about issues of press free­dom and pro­fes­sion­al ethics. Just as impor­tant­ly, World Press Free­dom Day is a day of sup­port for media which are tar­gets for the restraint, or abo­li­tion, of press free­dom. 

With its goals of pilot­ing actions for com­mu­ni­ty infor­ma­tion plat­forms to improve the degree of media plu­ral­ism and inclu­sive­ness, the Grass­roots Radio project is ful­ly com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing the val­ues reclaimed by the World Press Free­dom Day and to tack­ling the chal­lenges it evokes: cel­e­brate the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of press free­dom; assess the state of press free­dom through­out the world; defend the media from attacks on their inde­pen­dence; and pay trib­ute to jour­nal­ists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

With COVID-19, media free­dom faces new chal­lenges, among which the risk of mis/​disinformation, fake news and the increas­ing dan­gers which vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens – elder­ly, women, chil­dren, peo­ple of col­or – are sub­ject to. In this respect, the com­mu­ni­ty radios involved in the Grass­roots Radio project are unfold­ing mul­ti­ple ini­tia­tives to: denounce those mea­sures that are affect­ing free­dom of expres­sion, ensur­ing spir­i­tu­al lift and the main­te­nance of edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties, advo­cate media free­dom and plu­ral­ism by address­ing insti­tu­tion­al actors. 

Accord­ing to Grass­roots Radio pub­lic engage­ment and dis­sem­i­na­tion coor­di­na­tor, Francesco Dia­sio, the over­load of infor­ma­tion, with the relat­ed risk of dif­fu­sion of fake news, proves radio to be a pow­er­ful medi­um in many con­texts. More­over, local radios like those designed in the scope of Grass­roots Radio are mak­ing the impor­tant effort to check the reli­a­bil­i­ty of glob­al news and share respon­si­ble infor­ma­tion with local pop­u­la­tions. The work that radio prac­ti­tion­ers are mak­ing, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with project part­ners and local insti­tu­tion­al actors, is price­less, and I am glad the Grass­roots Radio project is con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment of such a col­lab­o­ra­tive  infra­struc­ture. 

The com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing civic engage­ment and media plu­ral­ism becomes even more chal­leng­ing nowa­days, when radio has to nav­i­gate a com­plex sociotech­ni­cal envi­ron­ment char­ac­ter­ized by a pro­gres­sive tran­si­tion to dig­i­tal broad­cast, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of tech­ni­cal stan­dards, and the con­straints posed by nation­al reg­u­la­tions. More­over, if the increas­ing per­va­sive­ness of com­mer­cial dig­i­tal plat­forms have facil­i­tat­ed the emer­gence of radio sta­tions, on the oth­er hand the con­tro­ver­sial mech­a­nisms of com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion and dat­i­fi­ca­tion reg­u­lat­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms can rep­re­sent a threat to the pro­mo­tion of demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance and pub­lic val­ues. 

The World Press Free­dom Day 2020 comes with a set of events spon­sored by UNESCO. The full list is avail­able at this link or on the UNESCO web­site en​.unesco​.org.