Serbian journalist Sasa Vucinic tells the story of Mikhail Beketov, a Russian journalist who wrote articles critical of his local government and was beaten to death in retaliation. The case of Beketov is not unique, as Vucinic shows with global statistics on the persecution of journalists. These numbers demonstrate that the state of free information and the treatment of journalists is at its lowest point in the last two decades.Vucinic believes that change is possible, and he proposes three steps to foster it: reframing the mandate from protecting press freedom to creating press freedom, increasing the diversity of funding sources for independent media, and identifying more sources of no-strings-attached funding in the struggle for press freedom.
