International Association Of Independent Journalists Inc.

[Maurice Ali]

World Press Freedom Day 2024!





By Maurice Ali, IAIJ inc.






Maurice Ali




For World Press Freedom Day (2024), I would urge my colleagues to at least consider a redefining of the press nomenclature, as in who are the press and the boundaries journalists have traditionally abided by in the past and possibly need to change to survive in the world of the future.



The world and the world of journalism has radically changed in the past few decades. Does it not make sense that the job description of what a journalist is should radically change to meet these new times? IAIJ was created primarily for citizen journalists but now also includes retired journalists and what we could call old school journalists. All are welcome here.



However, I hope you will see that we are more accepting and more flexible in what are journalists or even the definition of journalism itself. I don’t expect long lived journalist orgs to push the new ideas about journalism - that would be the domain of the more recent journalist orgs like ours, however I should note that IAIJ has been around for 20 years, and as a proper NGO for 15 years, and as a NGO in Consultative Status at the United Nations for seven years. In that time we were one of many at the UN to have citizen journalists designated as legitimate media workers at the 2015 World Summit of the Information Society Review Meetings, and that designation voted upon and ratified by a majority vote at the United Nations as I witnessed myself on the floor of the General Assembly Hall.


Journalism and journalists have to change and thus redefine themselves and how they do their profession as technology and society itself changes. It is my hope that we at IAIJ will continue to help in the development of this new form of journalism and journalists in the years ahead!



Happy World Press Freedom Day 2024!




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