Journalists around the world are confronting violence, repression and censorship, with the number of journalists in prison reaching record levels. For decades, the defense of global press freedom has been largely grounded in a human rights framework, linked to the individual right to freedom of expression as codified in international law. The author, the founding director of the Journalism Protection Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, and the former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, argues that the human rights model has not delivered the necessary results. There is a need to expand the framework for press freedom defense to incorporate the notion of public interest. Linking press freedom and public interest allows for the protection of press freedom based not only on the individual right to free expression but also on the collective social benefit derived from independent journalism.
Origen: A New Paradigm for Global Journalism: Press Freedom and Public Interest – Columbia Journalism Review
