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3 May: World Press Freedom Day

Living in the West we carp, criticise, attack and complain about the media, especially the print media and its reporters. Bottom line, though, whatever its shorrtcomings, the press is by and large able to pretty well publish whatever it wishes.

Not so in countries like Cuba, many Middle East nations and China, to name but a few.

BBC News
reports on press freedom on this World Press Freedom Day:

"Journalists will mark World Press Freedom Day on 3 May amid growing concern about what campaigners say is a continuing global decline in media freedoms.

Russia is again singled out, as a country whose government is allegedly taking aggressive measures to curb media freedom.

In its recently published annual study, the US-based Freedom House suggests that Vladimir Putin's policies have been a "template" for repressive governments the world over.

It asserts that Russia's once "lively and probing" press, has been turned into "a toothless sounding board" for official opinion."

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