As mentioned in a previous post today, it's World Press Freedom Day. This date is an annual event set aside by the UN honoring mainstream media, citizen journalists and social media reporters from around the globe, who strive to uncover information in the name of democracy, often at the risk of personal safety.
We assume our fourth estate in Canada is an unencumbered press, and that the struggle for press freedoms are "over there" in other countries fighting for change within their borders. Very often the public here is blase about the freedom of the press, given the corporate concentration of ownership at media outlets across North America.
In wondering about the state of media in Canada and New Brunswick on this World Press Freedom Day, New Brunswick Legislative Press Gallery President Jacques Poitras was asked in the video below to weigh in:
Jacques Poitras is a veteran journalist on the New Brunswick scene, and currently the
Provincial Affairs reporter for CBC in Fredericton, where he is privy
to the daily goings-on at the Legislature and government. When he's not
agitating politicians for answers, Poitras writes award-winning books,
his latest being Imaginary Line: Life on an Unfinished Border.
