Journalism may be as old as the hills, as the saying goes, but in the 2020s it is facing an existential crisis. If journalism is made de facto extinct, left to thrive only in small and privileged areas of the world, it will also be a huge setback for those struggling for human rights and a socially just world. This is why it's time for activists to make common cause with journalists and take up their struggles.

John Pilger, one of the world's most pioneering social justice journalists, died in 2023. He once explained the importance of investigative journalism by saying: "Without it our sense of injustice would lose its vocabulary and people would not be armed with the information they need to fight it."

If you look at the history of journalism in South Africa, there can be no doubt that Pilger was right. From the earliest independent black newspapers in the 19th century, through apartheid and into the democratic era, journalism has been an unbroken thread linked to the quest for justice and equality.

The same can be said of the role of independent journalism internationally; as borne out by the cruel harassment and imprisonment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, now a free man again after 14 years. But while Assange may be the most high-profile instance, journalists around the world risk their lives to expose injustice and reveal truth almost every day.

Journalism has always been a threat to power. But overall it has been able to resist these threats. However, in the words of Bob Dylan, "the times they are a-changin'...