Welcome to the World Next Week's special Press Freedom episode.

I'm Bob McMahon.

And I'm Carl Ann Robbins.

And I'm Jeff Kettman.

Joining us for this special episode is a fantastic writer, editor, champion of free press,

and in full disclosure, a really good friend, Jeff Gedman.

Jeff is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of American purpose.

He is twice-led Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, of which Bob is a proud alum.

Jeff finished up his most recent stint at RFERL just a few months ago, so a lot to talk about

that work in these dangerous times. Jeff is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jeff, welcome to our show.

Carla and Bob, thank you very much for having me.

Well, Carla and Jeff tomorrow is World Press Freedom Day, or maybe we should call it World Media Freedom Day.

The day is dedicated to the importance of journalism and freedom of expression.

This year so far has been especially hard for journalists, and it's basically part of a decade-long-plus period of difficulties. Just for one set of examples,

Reporters Without Borders, the watchdog group has found that the environment for journalism is bad

in seven out of ten countries. Another watchdog group Freedom House has been citing the decline

and press freedom as part of an overall erosion, or should we say, a recession in democracy over the past 15 or 16 years.

Obstacles to journalism and the free flow of information range from censorship to violent attacks and actually targets and assassinations of journalists.

So there's no better time than today as we celebrate the power of the pen, or perhaps

the podcast, to reflect on where global press freedom stands. So, Bob, as you said, this has been an

incredibly tough year. Myanmar, Iran, Russia, governments have been shutting news outlets, harassing,

...