Weekly Warm-Up: World Press Freedom Day

Your students have likely heard of the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and they may even be able to name the freedoms it promises. But how often do they consider what those freedoms really mean and to what extent they’re celebrated by people both in and out of the United States?

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The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It establishes such crowd favorites as the freedom of speech (#1), freedom from unreasonable search-and-seizure (#4), and the right to due process of law (#5). Photograph courtesy the National Archives, Public Domain.

May 3 is World Press Freedom Day, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993. Why not take the opportunity of the holiday to talk with students about one component of the first amendment: freedom of the press?

Every year an organization called Reporters Without Borders puts together a map that ranks the countries of the world in terms of press freedom.

Encourage your students to play around on the map, looking at their own country and considering countries they’ve recently studied. The United States, for example, comes in at 41—after much of Europe as well as Canada, some countries in Africa, and others in Central and Latin America. Challenge your students to brainstorm why that might be and then click on the country to read an explanation.

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Reporters Without Borders creates a World Press Freedom Index each year. The 2016 index puts Finland in the first position. Click to see interactive map courtesy Reporters Without Borders.

Ask your students what perspective or bias they think Reporters Without Borders may hold. If the complement to liberty is security, how might someone argue that a country’s restrictive press practices are apt because they promote national security?

Perhaps the big political questions of liberty and security are a little abstract for your students. Invite them to imagine it on a smaller scale: What restrictions would they want on a school newspaper? Should gossip columns be allowed? (You can connect this with laws against libel!) What about articles about drugs or illegal behavior? Where do students believe the lines should be drawn in their world?

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A student talks to the press after his National Geographic Bee win. Photo by Rebecca Hale, National Geographic.

Want to take World Press Freedom Day a step further in your classroom? Encourage students to research contemporary journalists such as the National Geographic Explorers listed below in the Teachers’ Toolkit.

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT

Reporters Without Borders: 2016 World Press Freedom Index (Map)

Nat Geo: 1791: Bill of Rights Day

Live ScienceWhat is Freedom of the Press?

Principal’s Guide to Scholastic JournalismThe First Amendment and Student Media

Washington PostA principal yanked a drug article from a student newspaper

National Geographic Explorer Journalists

Nat GeoMartin Edstrom
Nat GeoCaroline Gerdes 
Nat GeoJoshua Howard 
Nat GeoJulia Harte 
Nat GeoMark Lynas 
Nat GeoJoe Riis 
Nat GeoShannon Switzer 
Nat GeoBen Woods 
Nat GeoDave Yoder

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