Is it important to express how you feel? It looks like an easy question to answer. Probably most people would say yes. But, why? There might be more than one reason.
Since I was a little girl, I have heard that the media should give voice to those who do not have it. In Spanish, we say, “dar voz a quiet no tiene voz”. That is very old, but actual expression has its roots in maybe one of the most beaten principles of journalism, Empowerment.
Any citizen of every democratic nation of the world should be strong and confident about who he is, his beliefs or his ideas. Should feel free to express in the same way he is free to express that he loves his children, his mother, or his wife, without being afraid, coerced or censored. Citizens should be allowed to express ideas or thoughts using any channel of communication, oral or written. Citizens should feel empowered and heard.
When governments begin to control, censor or restrict the press in any way, they show a clear sign of democratic weakness. Any government which describes itself as a democratic one or its country as a democratic nation should allow the press to tell each and every story that knocks at its door with transparency, originality, accountability, and fairness. Journalists should be there to search, to ask, to find, to speak up for those who have no voice, to empower. Journalists and media are due to their community.
A nation with press freedom guarantees the exercise of journalism for the benefit of its citizens. Journalists, reporters, photographers are not harassed, attacked, detained, threaten, censored, persecuted, silenced or even murdered. In a free press nation, journalists inspect the power and through investigation reveal any dark issue. Independent, free and plural press are indispensable for citizens to claim their rights without being restrained by any state power. Governments should not control what people say neither what the press writes nor expresses.
Press freedom is the main right of free expression. Without it, people cannot be heard equally and as well as their demands cannot be taken into account. Press in any of its platforms, print, radio, television and digital, is like a guardian or a sentinel of governments and any other kind of power.
As a journalist, I have lived censorship in my own flesh. Censorship from the power of the government, and due to economic interests, censorship from the media I have worked for. I was threatened. My work equipment was robbed. My car windows were broken. I was beaten up while reporting. And finally, my family was threatened in my own house. Not only that, but I was forced to leave my country because I was no longer able to provide them a safety place to live. I did not feel safe at all.
Authoritarian governments do not want to be measured, criticized or judged by public opinion, neither by journalists. Journalists create critical thinking in society. The audience as a free thinker constructs its own criteria, and tyrannical regimes hate that.
Freedom of the press is the cornerstone of any nation that is described as democratic. Without that stone, every other human right falls down. That is why the press is the first target of authoritarian and dictatorial governments. Press freedom is not for journalists to say or to write, it is for journalists and media to be the voice.