Note to Correspondents                                 

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY TO BE OBSERVED AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 1 MAY

Panel to Discuss ‘Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace’

The United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) and the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) are co-sponsoring an observance of World Press Freedom Day, to take place on Thursday, 1 May 2003,

4-6 p.m., at Columbia SIPA, 420 W. 118th St. 6th floor (Dag Hammarskjöld Lounge). The official observance, 3 May, falls on a Saturday this year.

The topic, "Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace", will be addressed by a panel of journalists/writers, as well as experts in law and the Internet.  Lisa Anderson, Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, will make welcoming remarks.  Panellists will include Akwe Amosu, Executive Editor and Producer of AllAfrica.com, a Washington-based African news service; Eben Moglen, Professor of Law and Legal History, Columbia Law School; and Danny Schechter, Executive Editor of MediaChannel.org, the world's largest online media issues network.  The moderator is Sreenath Sreenivasan, the "Tech Guru" on WABC-TV, Associate Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and co-founder of the South Asian Journalists Association.

The event is open to the public.  Video coverage will be available for

on-demand playback on the United Nations Web page.

Freedom of expression in cyberspace will be a major topic at the World Summit on the Information Society, to be held in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003 and in Tunis in 2005.  The first-ever global Summit on the issue, the event will seek to foster an information society that guarantees independent, pluralistic and free media.

Cyber-freedom of expression will also be a central subject of the World Electronic Media Forum, taking place in Geneva from 9 to 11 December, which the United Nations Department of Public Information is organizing to contribute to the Summit.  The Forum will bring together media executives and practitioners from developed and developing countries, as well as policy makers, to discuss the role of the electronic media in the information society.

For more information: (212) 963-7346 (UN) or (212) 854-1790 (Columbia).

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