It may be business as usual for those who seek to silence journalists, intimidate the media, or discredit our public information role, but recent weeks have seen an entirely new level of contempt for a profession desperately seeking assistance in the fight against global impunity.

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum (WEF) call on Saudi Arabia to provide immediate answers in the case of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared after a supposedly routine visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on 2 October and has since been confirmed dead.

For journalists, newsrooms have always been somewhat of a sanctuary. The bustling, deadline environment; voices raised across the cubicles or hushed in corner groupings of gossip or story deliberation. The busier the newsroom the greater the sense of calm and belonging journalists feel there. And while no longer smoky, and in some cases without police squawk boxes or photo desks, just the feeling one gets when encountering rows of journalists hard at work on today or tomorrow’s news invokes a secure feeling of being at the center of something.

Media managers from around the globe met for a press freedom roundtable to cap off the World News Media Congress in Estoril, Portugal on 8 June. There, journalists addressed the accomplishments they’ve achieved and what still needs to be done to maintain free and independent media.