It is a truly odd time to be a journalist, considering the constant claims of fake news, mass layoffs and pressures of a 24-hour news cycle that just won't quit. That's the environment—at least for a number of American journalists—for 2018's World Press Freedom Day on Thursday.
The holiday, started by the U.N. in 1993, advocates for the freedom of speech and expression globally and honors journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty.
"On World Press Freedom Day 2018, I call on governments to strengthen press freedom, and to protect journalists," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on the U.N's website. "Promoting a free press is standing up for our right to truth."
There hasn't been much good news for journalists in the United States of late. The country fell in Reporters Without Borders' 2018 World Press Freedom Index, with the report citing President Donald Trump's anti-media statements as a reason.
"More and more democratically-elected leaders no longer see the media as part of democracy's essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion," the report read. "The United States, the country of the First Amendment, has fallen again in the Index under Donald Trump, this time two places to 45th. A media-bashing enthusiast, Trump has referred to reporters [as] 'enemies of the people,' the term once used by Joseph Stalin."
Trump has made it a regular practice to slam the media. He tweeted this week, for instance: "The Fake News is going crazy making up false stories and using only unnamed sources (who don't exist). They are totally unhinged, and the great success of this Administration is making them do and say things that even they can't believe they are saying. Truly bad people!"
Embedded below is a map from Statista that uses Reporters Without Borders data to chart out press freedom by country.
You will find more infographics at Statista
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