25th June 2019
Sheila Nduhukire has been a journalist for more than eight years, most recently working as a senior news anchor and reporter for NTV Uganda. She’s currently on a Chevening scholarship at Cardiff University in the UK. In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, she talks about being forced to prove herself as a female […]
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20th May 2019
Berna Namata has been a business journalist for more than six years, mostly in Rwanda. She spent a year in London as a Chevening scholar. She returned in 2017 and currently works in Rwanda for the Nation Media Group’s popular regional weekly newspaper, The East African. In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, she […]
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25th October 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
I attended a conference on investigative journalism recently and had the chance to meet both journalists and those who support them. I took the opportunity to thank them for the difficult, and sometimes dangerous job they do. A job which is so important to the public interest and for which few journalists get the recognition […]
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11th October 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
Last week I joined the Ombudsman of Macedonia and Sakam da Kazam to officially mark our three-way cooperation on a new project Speak Up for the Ombudsman. From this autumn until spring 2018 this project will provide one more channel to give voice to citizens of Macedonia who need help from the Ombudsman. The aims […]
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29th July 2015 Skopje, North Macedonia
Having in mind the recent political developments in the country, it has never been more important to deconstruct the meaning of the term Public interest. It seems that the term has various meanings, depending on who you ask, and whose interests are on the line. In general, public interest involves matters, or policies that affect […]
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10th December 2014 London, UK
For Human Rights Day Minister of State for Europe, David Lidington, blogs on freedom of expression and the media overseas. Today is international Human Rights day; a day to celebrate the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. We should all take a moment to think about the rights that everyone in […]
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3rd May 2014
Today is World Press Freedom Day #WPFD. The work that journalists do is often dangerous and difficult. Unfortunately, 2013 was one of the most dangerous years for the profession across the world, with 70 journalists killed. Many of these were caught in the cross-fire of armed hostilities. They had been trying in exceedingly difficult circumstances […]
29th November 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
French diplomat Jules Cambon saw the dangers of diplomatic openness in 1931, complaining that ‘the activities of the press, and ignorance of a public that insists on being told everything, do not create an atmosphere favourable to prosecution of political designs’. He was right, long before Assange and Snowden, that the media would sweep away […]
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26th November 2013 Bangalore, India
Last week I was lucky enough to spend three days listening to senior Indian journalists and scientists discuss how little the media covers Indian science, and how the coverage can be improved. The cause for these intense discussions were three consultation meetings we had organised, along with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), Research Councils […]
3rd May 2012 Nairobi, Kenya
On World Press Freedom Day, my thoughts are with the families of the brave Somali journalists who were killed on the course of duty and those who still brave the dangers of operating in one of the most difficult places in the world to be a be a journalist. The shocking fact is that so […]