3 May: World Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom Day is a UN Observance which “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.” While science journalism is rarely dangerous, independence is fundamental to accurate reporting – the Canadian Science Writers Association (CSWA) and the Association des communicateurs scientifique (ACS) won last year’s CCWPF Press Freedom Award.

One of the WPFD themes for 2013 is online safety. In our modern, digitised, connected world, citizen journalists can break and report on a story live via Twitter and professional journalists can access a vastly more diverse and informative range of sources. This has both benefits and drawbacks, from the loss of a filter between news reporter and news consumer to instant fame to extreme danger.

While the fundamentals of online safety are fairly well-advertised, there are several special considerations that scientists and journalists must take into account. How can you verify the identity or trustworthiness of someone you’re communicating with? Should you publicise a scientific claim that you can’t personally evaluate? Are you at risk for publishing information or opinion about a controversial topic? The consequences of getting it wrong can be grave.

As usual, there are no easy solutions. However, observances like WPFD at least provide a forum to get these issues out for discussion. See if there’s an event near you: