Regional media groups partner to host digital security workshop

World Press Freedom Day, celebrated every year on May 3, acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom and is also a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics.

Just as importantly, World Press Freedom Day is a day of support for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press freedom. It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.

This year, CBU is partnering with the Public Media Alliance (PMA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to run a workshop on digital security best practices.

It comes amid a rise in digital security threats to journalists in the region, and follows a presentation-based journalists’ safety event, co-hosted by CBU and PMA, with support from UNESCO in February, which considered the regional context and experiences of Caribbean journalists.

The follow-up 90-minute workshop will take place on May 28, from 10 – 11.30 EST via Zoom.

To be run by Ela Stapley of the Committee to Protect Journalists, it is intended to provide Caribbean journalists with the practical tools needed to protect themselves and their sources digitally. It will cover protecting personal online data, secure forms of communication, and spyware.

Participants will learn how to mitigate the risks of digital threats, including legal requests for data and online abuse.

The event is extremely timely given the current state of press freedom.  According to the just-released RSF World Press Freedom Index for 2025, although physical attacks against journalists are the most visible violations of press freedom, economic pressure is also a major, more insidious problem. The economic indicator on the Index now stands at an unprecedented, critical low as its decline continued in 2025. As a result, the global state of press freedom is now classified as a “difficult situation” for the first time in the history of the Index.  The major decline is particularly evident in the Americas, where 22 of the region’s 28 countries saw their economic indicators drop.

In the Caribbean, the highest ranked country is Trinidad & Tobago, at 19, which climbed 6 levels, followed by Jamaica at 26 which dropped 2 places compared to 2024.  Suriname slipped by four places to be ranked at 32 while Belize improved seven places year over year to land at 47.  Guyana improved 4 places to rank 73rd.  Given the all-out attack on media institutions in Haiti it was not surprising it dropped by 18 places to 111.  Cuba is ranked lowest in the region at 165 despite improving slightly by 3 places compared to 2024.