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Dear Progressive Reader,

May 3 was the thirtieth annual International Press Freedom Day, first proclaimed ([link removed]) by the United Nations in 1993. As the global organization states ([link removed]) on its website, “The international community faces multiple crises: conflicts and violence, persistent socio-economic inequalities driving migration, environmental crises, and challenges to the health and wellbeing of people all around the world. At the same time, disinformation and misinformation online and offline proliferate, with serious impact on the institutions underpinning democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. It is exactly to counter these critical situations and threats, that press freedom, safety of journalists, and access to information take centre stage.”

Writing on our website in 2017, I described ([link removed]) how “Reporters in public settings are also finding that people are becoming more violent toward the media than they have been in the past.” And in a 2022 interview, Jodie Ginsburg, president of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told ([link removed]) David Boddiger, “There is an absolute line that’s clear between the leader of a country, like former President Donald Trump painting the press as the enemy, and the physical attacks we subsequently see on journalists.” However, as Alexandra Ellerbeck wrote ([link removed]) in The Progressive in 2019, “[Trump’s] rhetorical attacks may have put fuel on the fire of harassment campaigns, and his insinuations about invented sources may have contributed to polarization and undermined trust in the media,
but these trends predate him and will exist after he is no longer in the White House.”

Today in many of the nations of Central America there are outright physical and also judicial assaults against members of the media. As Jeff Abbott reports ([link removed]) , “the campaign against the independence of the media has expanded greatly, leading to many outlets closing and journalists forced into exile.” And as Bill Lueders noted ([link removed]) in a column back in 2017, “the job of journalism has never been more important, and the press needs the support . . . to withstand [these] attacks. Let’s stand together and push back.”

This week on our website, Zach D. Roberts interviews ([link removed]) Matthew Dalleck about his new book, Birchers, on the life and legacy of the John Birch Society; Kathy Kelly tells the story ([link removed]) of a new online map that pinpoints the vast network of U.S. military bases around the globe—in the hopes of getting them closed; and Mike Ervin shines a light ([link removed]) on the unfilled (although mandated) need to provide devices to assist visually-impaired people in crossing city streets. Plus Eleanor Bader reviews ([link removed]) Mellisa Ditmore’s new book on labor trafficking, Unbroken Chains; Campbell Erickson and Tamara Shamir pen an op-ed
([link removed]) on the ways the new "app" from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will make border crossings more dangerous for migrants; and journalist and photographer Ann Louise Deslandes writes from Mexico ([link removed]) on how new U.S. immigration policies are leaving many asylum seekers stranded.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - The new 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is still available. You can order one online ([link removed]) .

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