Vermonters in pickup trucks and Subarus honked their horns for World Press Freedom on Saturday, at the urging of a small but enthusiastic group assembled at the top of Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace. Almost a dozen of us from Seven Days joined members of Third Act Vermont and the general public to raise our voices for independent media. With tuba accompaniment, we marched four blocks south to City Hall Park and back, wielding signs and chanting slogans to call attention to the essential work of journalists here and across the globe.
We were about 24 hours ahead of Pope Leo XIV, who acknowledged the increasing risks reporters face at the end of his weekly Sunday prayer at the Vatican. “Today we celebrate World Press Freedom Day … unfortunately, this right is often violated,” he said of the perilous pursuit of truth. “We remember the many journalists and reporters who have been victims of war and violence.”
Indeed, a record 129 media professionals died on the job in 2025, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The same group reports that the Israel-Hamas War has claimed 232 since it started on October 7, 2023, making it the deadliest conflict in history for working journalists. Vermont Sen. Peter Welch called out both “somber” milestones in a statement for the Congressional Record, noting: “Two-thirds of the journalists who died last year were killed by Israeli security forces.”
For the past 25 years, Reporters Without Borders has compiled a World Press Freedom Index that ranks countries according to how well they protect their media professionals. This year the average score among the countries and territories surveyed reached an all-time low. Norway is at the top of the list, followed by the Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The United States fell seven places to 64th out of 180, behind Liberia, Ukraine and Poland. The situation for U.S. journalists is coded as “problematic.”
Deadly weapons are an obvious threat to reporters and photographers who cover war. But there are so many other forces and trends eroding access to information, “even in democratic countries,” as Reporters Without Borders notes. It mentions “the expansion of increasingly restrictive legal arsenals — particularly those linked to national security policies.” Most U.S. reporters no longer work out of the Pentagon, for example, after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth established new rules that restrict where they can go, and whom they can talk to, in the building.
Closer to home, over the past decade Seven Days has fought two frivolous legal challenges that could be categorized as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. Vermont has an anti-SLAPP law to protect local news outlets such as ours, but it only applies in state court, so plaintiffs file their complaints in federal court. Battling them has cost Seven Days years of anxiety and tens of thousands of dollars. Even though we’ve been successful on both counts, the price of our libel insurance has gone up, and the annual deductible has increased from $15,000 to $50,000 — per case.
For a small independent media company, that’s the equivalent of a falling bomb.
The ball is in the court of democracies and their citizens. It is up to them to stand in the way of those who seek to silence the press.
Anne Bocandé
In a statement accompanying the Reporters Without Borders index, editorial director Anne Bocandé warned of the “criminalisation of journalism: the misuse of national security laws, SLAPPs, and the systematic obstruction of those who investigate, expose and name names. Current protection mechanisms are not strong enough; international law is being undermined and impunity is rife. We need firm guarantees and meaningful sanctions. The ball is in the court of democracies and their citizens. It is up to them to stand in the way of those who seek to silence the press.”
Echoing Bocandé’s warning, Seven Days consulting editor Ken Ellingwood took the megaphone at Saturday’s march and shared some extemporaneous remarks. He spent 10 of his 20 years on staff at the Los Angeles Times based in Mexico and the Middle East, where reporters face real risks. Earlier this year, he was one of the five judges who evaluated contenders for the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.
In 2021, Ellingwood wrote a book about the first U.S. editor to die in the line of duty. Presbyterian minister Elijah Lovejoy left his native state of Maine in the early 1800s to set up a newspaper in St. Louis, Mo., to share his abolitionist views. Pro-slavery mobs destroyed his press — four times — and Lovejoy died in the final mêlée.
Noting the timeliness of Lovejoy’s story, Ellingwood called him the “first martyr” to the free press in the United States.
“It’s in the Constitution, but it’s never guaranteed,” Ellingwood told the sympathetic crowd. “People have died to make sure this right continues alive with us. And we will continue to have to fight to protect it.”
This article appears in May 6 • 2026.
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