Gene Policinski: Take time out to celebrate World Press Freedom Day

  Thanks to the First Amendment, I’m free to write these words — and you’re free to read them.

  But for about 84% of the approximately 6.9 billion people with whom we share this planet, that’s not the case. They live in nations where the press is only “partly” free from government control or criminal intimidation, or not free at all.

  Those global press freedom figures are from a 2010 report by Freedom House, an independent human rights organization, which has compiled such data annually since 1980. The group’s 2011 report will be issued May 2.