World Press Freedom Day
Next: May 3, 2027
Thank the people who bring the news.
The story
Where it comes from
World Press Freedom Day marks the Windhoek Declaration, a statement of press freedom principles drawn up by African newspaper journalists at a UNESCO seminar in Windhoek, Namibia, and adopted on 3 May 1991. It called for a press that is free, independent and pluralistic. Later that year UNESCO's General Conference endorsed the declaration and recommended a day for press freedom, and in 1993 the UN General Assembly proclaimed 3 May World Press Freedom Day.
How it's celebrated
UNESCO hosts an international conference on the most pressing questions facing the media, and presents the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, created in 1997, to a person or group that has stood up for press freedom, often in the face of danger. For the rest of us it is a good day to read a story from a local newsroom, and to thank the reporters who cover our towns.
Did you know
- The Windhoek Declaration was the first of a series of regional declarations on press freedom adopted around the world.
- In 2025 the declaration was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World register of documentary heritage.
- In 2021 the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Russian editor Dmitry Muratov, 'for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression'.
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- International Day of the Midwife · May 5, 2027
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