EDITORIAL
World Press Freedom: An idea yet to be fulfilled

Newspaper people — journalists in general — take pride in keeping themselves out of the picture.

Reader's don't particularly care what we went through to get a story and care even less about our feelings about the topic at hand. They just want the news.

There is at least one day a year, however, where that focus shifts. On World Press Freedom Day, today, many newspapers take a moment out to talk about the importance of a free press and the constant threats to that freedom, both at home and abroad.

The May 3 date has a particular poignancy. It was chosen to commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the Windhoek Declaration, a 1991 statement of principles by a group of editors, publishers and journalists in Africa. There are few places in the world where the struggle for journalistic independence and freedom has been more bitter than in Africa.

In the United States, we have a vigorous tradition of press freedom that allows ideas — good, bad and ugly — to flourish. But that's hardly the case in much of the rest of the world.

One striking measure of the importance of a free press is the lengths which some authorities will go to stifle it. In the United States, we complain about secrecy, stonewalling and misdirection from officials, both public and private, who do not want the people to know the truth.

Overseas, the pattern is uglier. Beatings, imprisonment, death threats and worse are part of the daily live of those who simply wish to report the truth.

Our First Amendment rights are precious. But as the world teaches us, they cannot be taken for granted.