Press freedom is under attack. In conflict zones all over the world, journalists are deliberately targeted because they report the truth. In Belgium, press freedom is also under attack. Press scandals rule the public opinion, such as the News of the World phone hacking incident. As a consequence, the large public starts generalizing and questions the legitimacy of press freedom as such. Journalists, even those in conflict zones, are losing credibility and are considered as sensation seekers. The loss of idealistic support risks to end in a dramatic loss of financial support in the near future.For the first time in Belgium, we succeeded in uniting all major national media to make a collective statement for press freedom. Since many reporters had already drawn blood in war zones, we created a PR-able event with a strong and positive link to that: a big themed blood donation. Key idea: Rather give our blood to victims than to predators of press freedom.

The genius about the key idea is that it didn’t just united them, it also turned journalists and editors of all these national media into spokesmen for press freedom.

They felt so involved that they took the initiative to report about it on TV, radio, in newspapers. They all teamed up and broadened the public opinion about press freedom. After a 15 minute long TV special featuring Belgium’s most famous war reporter Rudi Vranckx, the most often retweeted message on the program’s wall was: ‘A few good men #ReportersWithoutBorders’.

When a journalist is locked up, you are locked out of information.To spread this message, we worked with popular media channels in Belgium. The idea: to temporarily block the information for their audience. To literally hijack the news in prime time.On May 3, the pm news on RTL-TVI opened as usual, but fell flat right after the titles since there was no newsreader on the set. The same day, the homepages of 5 major news sites were simply black. When the news began on the radio stations Bel RTL and Radio Contact there was no journalist behind the microphone. 5,000 copies of the newspaper La Libre, distributed among politicians and opinion leaders, were sealed with a sticker.All the actions were signed off with the line, 'Each time a journalist is imprisoned, it’s your right to know that is being locked up.’ People were directed to the RWB's website for more information and donations.

All major national media contacted participated. We united 13 national television stations, 6 newspapers and 15 radio stations for the largest themed blood donation in Belgium ever. Over 600 journalists and editors showed up at the donation and became our spokesmen. Over 200 liters of blood were collected. On a population of 11 million, we reached approx. 1.1 million readers via free full page ads in leading national newspapers, more than 2 million people by TV news and by an unaffordable 15’ special featuring Belgium’s most famous war reporters Rudi Vranckx, Daniel Dumoustier and even world famous BBC reporter Louis Theroux commenting on the action. Journalist JP Martin assisted in a 10’ long radio special on Bel-RTL, with a 52% reach in the south of Belgium. Famous radio station Studio Brussel dedicated a 5’ long special. The advertising-free Public News website, exceptionally placed our banner. A huge PR, for free.