International Free Press Day

Tomorrow is the International Free Press Day - so declares the International Free Press Society. Now why September 30th as the day? It was four years ago on September 30th that the now infamous "Danish cartoons" were published and causes the riots, bloodshed, and murder. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy). It was also in response to the many media sources that refused to show the cartoons that Ezra Levant's The Western Standard published the cartoons and was then taken to human rights hell.

I normally wouldn't care about a self designated "day." However, this is important. How are we doing with freedom of the press in Canada? Is it truly free? Free enough to publish the cartoons? Apparently not. The fact that the CBS, Global, CTV, and as far as I know every newspaper chain refused to publish the cartoons is an act of self censorship that boggles the mind. The cartoosn were THE STORY but none of us were able to see them. Why? I am guessing because the media sources feared retribution - perhaps of the physical type seen around the world but likely as much from Human Rights charges. They were wrong not to publish the cartoons but sadly they were right about the human rights charges.

Andrew Hamilton warned that democracy cannot be born or survive without a free press. It seems to me that we may be testing that hypothesis in Canada.