WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY: PLEASE BE UNBIASED, BUHARI PLEADS
The theme of 2018 World Press Freedom Day is – ‘Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law’
The 3rd of May is annually celebrated as World Press Freedom Day.This day celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom, to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.
President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina “The media can count on us to keep our words, but we also want to be fairly reported. The media should hold ethics of the noble profession sacrosanct, and be wary of those bent on causing disaffection in the country,”.
On this World Press Freedom Day, those involved in the negative antics should reflect, and ponder on how some countries have been thrown into a tailspin by irresponsible use of the media. We have no other country than Nigeria, and what we make of it is what we get,” he said.
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 following a Recommendation adopted at the twenty-sixth session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 1991.
World press freedom day serves as an occasion to inform citizens of violations of press freedom – a reminder that in dozens of countries around the world, publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down, while journalists, editors, and publishers are harassed, attacked, detained and even murdered.
