And the Golden Globes goes to... press freedom

The organization behind the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday announced $2 million to a journalism consortium and a media rights group as it hoped to combat growing threats to press freedom.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which runs the first gala of the awards season, announced $1 million each to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The association's president, Indian journalist Meher Tatna, said that the group had been founded to cover entertainment but had expanded its mission to defend journalists amid rising attacks on their work.

"As artists, you bravely tell stories that enable us to see the world through the eyes of another. These stories are our best hope of reflecting the kind of world we want to live in," she said.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington-based network that supports in-depth cross-border probes into corruption and abuse of power, said the grant would support "the public's need for openness and transparency."

"This generous donation will allow us to bring scrutiny to repressive and dangerous regimes and to systems designed to channel more and more of the world's resources into the hands of the rich and powerful," the consortium's director Gerard Ryle said in a statement.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, which defends the rights of journalists worldwide, also voiced gratitude for the donation.

The Golden Globes come amid growing concern over the preservation of a free press, with President Donald Trump incessantly denouncing "fake news" and journalists facing an array of dangers as they report out of conflict zones.

"The Post" -- one of the nominees for best drama at the Golden Globes -- depicts The Washington Post's publication in brazen defiance of then president Richard Nixon of The Pentagon Papers, the US Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam War.

Source: AFP