One of UNESCO’s primary missions is to raise awareness through dialogue and international collaboration of the threats facing journalists across the world. UNESCO’s annual World Press Freedom Day is a reminder of journalism’s inherent value as a crucial element of democracy and of how freedom of expression is a crucial element of journalism.

The University of Oregon launched the Crossings Institute for Conflict-Sensitive Reporting and Intercultural Dialogue in 2013. A combination of student reporters and faculty, the institute’s members have been participating World Press Freedom Day since to cover the main themes concerning press freedoms globally. The institute’s self-assignment is to raise awareness and stimulate meaningful dialogue for the next generation of journalists.

For UNESCO’s 2024 World Press Freedom Day, student reporters Ruby Wool and I, traveled 6,284 miles from Eugene, Oregon, to Santiago, Chile. On May 3, with our cohort of professors, we attended the inauguration and ceremony, officially launching UNESCO’s theme of the year, a Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Environmental Crisis.

A year before, at World Press Freedom Day events at UN headquarters in New York City, I spoke with Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). A few months later, as detailed by CPJ in its 2023 report, “Israel made a rapid ascent on the 2023 list, becoming the source for more than 75 percent of journalist killings, and rising to the sixth-worst jailer of journalists after the start of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7.” In addition, CPJ estimated that “128 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war, almost all of them Palestinian media workers in Gaza killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes. Some of the journalists died while wearing protective gear identifying them as members of the press.” The staggering statistics highlighted the perilous conditions facing Palestinian journalists and the lack of global attention of their current conditions.