World Press Freedom Day – A Poem

A microphone trembles, but does not break.
A pen bleeds ink so the public can wake.
Somewhere a newsroom runs on stale tea and nerve,
typing truth into a world that forgot how to serve.

They told the story when the streets went dark.
They named the names they were warned not to mark.
A byline is a body that stands in the square,
taking the blow so the facts stay there.

Freedom is not a hashtag. It’s a door kicked open.
It’s the knock at midnight, the file left unspoken.
It’s the editor who says “run it” while hands still shake,
and the reporter who returns for the story’s sake.

We bury too many with their notebooks.
We jail too many for the questions they took.
Yet mornings come, and so do they —
recording the state as it frays.

So here’s to the ones who refuse to be kind
to power that poisons the public mind.
To the cameras raised when guns say “don’t,”
to the sentence that starts with “we found out . . .”

May your sources stay safe. May your copy stay clean.
May your voice outlive every threat unseen.
Because a free press is not a luxury we earn —
it’s the fire alarm. And the fire still burns.