Serving Barnwell County and it's neighbors since 1852
This Independence Day, while nursing an ankle I sprained while rock climbing, I had some time to think about a First Amendment freedom I think we too often take for granted: the freedom of the press. There can be no freedom of speech, assembly or religion without a free press. Like freedom of speech, the free press has played a key role in the United States’ long and often interrupted road to freedom for everyone.
Unfortunately, in the United States and around the world, the free press is under attack. In 2023, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) documented 129 killings of media workers, one of the worst years in the history of the IFJ’s decades of tracking threats to the free press.
The overwhelming majority of journalists killed over the past year have been both innocent and Palestinian; journalists and Palestinians did not start this horrible war. Since the Hamas attack last October, the Israeli Defense Forces have prevented international journalists from entering Gaza, arrested 48 reporters throughout the Palestinian territories and killed 103 Palestinian journalists, many deliberately. Hamas has killed four journalists.
By killing and detaining journalists, the Israeli government is attempting to blind the public to what human rights groups, scholars, lawyers, United Nations experts, eyewitnesses, and vast swaths of the Jewish and Palestinian people are describing as genocide; the unspeakable destruction of the Palestinian people, their places of worship, their schools, their hospitals, their homes, their babies, their humanity, and their freedom.
“This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I can remember. The impact on press freedom in Gaza, in the region and the rest of the world is something we cannot accept,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, the program director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
But the Israeli government is not the only government cracking down on the free press. In the authoritarian petrostate of Azerbaijan, a record number of Azeri journalists were recently imprisoned not long after the country ethnically cleansed Artsakh, a historical homeland for the Armenian people. The list goes on and on.
I pen these words as a journalist, but also as a human being with people in my life who are tied to these conflicts. A Palestinian friend has told me of his struggle to receive empathy from others since October 7, and the niece of a lifelong family friend was fortunate enough to not be home when a Hezbollah rocket killed two people in her village in northern Israel. In Armenia, I have loved ones who witnessed Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of their homeland. In my view, journalism and our humanity are intertwined.
For our team at The People-Sentinel, the story of the Kansas-based newspaper Marion County Record hit close to home; a humble weekly newspaper covering rural communities and small-town politics had its office torn apart by police.
Despite all of this horrible news, there’s also good news for press freedom. Julian Assange, an Australian journalist imprisoned for reporting on United States war crimes, recently avoided extradition to the United States and is now free. The Marion County Record recently settled with the former police chief in Marion for $235,000. State legislatures across America are passing laws to support news entrepreneurs. And even though trust in the media is at an all-time low, 92% of Americans still believe that a free press is important to society, according to Pew Research polling.
I completely understand people’s frustration with the media, especially here in the United States, where the overwhelming majority of Americans no longer trust the media as an institution. Too often journalists self-censor, follow narratives handed down to them and choose to not emphasize issues that deserve more attention. However, at our best, journalists hold up a mirror to humanity. If we don’t like what we see in our reflection, we the people, the demos, the democracy, can change it. But we must be brave and embrace the discomfort of taking a sincere look at ourselves; for that, we need a robust free press.
So how can you help support the free press? Well, consider making a tax-deductible donation to Report for America, the program that supports me and other young journalists across America. Keep up with the Committee to Protect Journalists, which helps journalists across the world in trouble. I’d also recommend reading #TheGazaProject, a series of investigations by the newsroom Forbidden Stories, which has continued telling the stories of Palestinian journalists after they have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. And always, always support peace over war.
By supporting journalists this Independence Day, you not only support yourself and your community, but you also help this country live up to the ideal its people value most: freedom.
Elijah de Castro is a Report for America corps member who writes about rural communities like Allendale and Barnwell counties for The People-Sentinel. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep Elijah writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today.
