On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, celebrated every year on 3 May, UNESCO and its Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, will host an online discussion on the importance of free media in providing the public with reliable independent information, vital in times of crisis.
The debate will address the danger of what the UN Secretary-General has described as the “dangerous epidemic of misinformation.” It will advocate the need for a free press in countering disinformation which is putting lives at risk and undermining the response to the COVID-19 pandemic by promoting false cures, conspiracy theories and myths.
UNESCO’s flagship event of World Press Freedom Day will bring together UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet alongside several other high-level participants. Prominent Mexican-born American journalist Jorge Ramos will moderate the debate.
The debate will follow the launch on 3 May of a global UNESCO media campaign called FACTS which highlights the role of free and independent media in the context of COVID-19. Leading media organizations around the world are joining the campaign, developed by award-winning communication agency DDB.
On this occasion, UNESCO will also present the latest data from its 2020 World Trends Report on Media Independence and press freedom in times of COVID-19, to be launched on 5 May.
Examining the information landscape during the pandemic, the report points to research showing that nearly 42 % of over 178 million tweets related to COVID-19 were produced by bots and that 40% of these messages were unreliable
