Some 2,500 years after Thucydides became the world's first military correspondent, covering the Peloponnesian War, and 600 years after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, it could be expected that the world's population has grown comfortable with factual information, mass communications and the wide dissemination of news and ideas.

But freedom of the media and access to information across the globe is still an idea that requires constant tending.

World Press Freedom Day, which was celebrated Saturday, is an opportunity to take stock in how close we're coming to achieving that goal.

We tend to focus on suppression of media, which has been serious in places such as Russia and parts of Central Asia. Yet there is plenty of positive progress that should be trumpeted.

A new generation of journalists who were too young to be influenced by the restrictive Politburo have shown a remarkable independent streak in the face of the old guard. Brave Ukrainian journalists stayed on the air through massive political upheaval during that country's Orange Revolution in 2004, giving citizens critical information during a tempestuous period. Their reporting helped quell tensions and turn a likely volatile situation into a peaceful reaction.

Meanwhile, the influx and delivery of unfiltered information into previously repressive societies is having a strong effect on health and safety. Southeast Asia, which is being hit quickly and hard by climate change, has myriad journalists who are asking the tough questions of their governments on environmental issues. These queries have developed public consciousness of global warming and environmental protection, prompting governments to take action.

In Kenya this year, journalists quickly understood the immense power they held during post-election riots, coming together to quell the use of hate speech in broadcasts. Their role was immense in ensuring the country's stability.

In Chad, Internews-established radio stations are broadcasting reports to refugees from Darfur, helping them access vital information about health, food, water and shelter.

Radio stations now operate in many areas of Afghanistan that had once been silenced by the Taliban's information black hole. These stations are staffed by locals discussing issues that matter most to them.

Worldwide, the silence surrounding HIV/AIDS is now being addressed in public because of courageous journalists who want to face the problem directly, rather than try to ignore it by stigmatizing those affected.

But freedom of the media isn't just about who controls the printing press or the transmitter or the cell-phone towers or how many of each there are. It's about how a society protects information's many pathways as a whole.

A free working press should be the goal of every country, every day. But media freedom - in short, the ability to exchange ideas openly without the fear of persecution - needs our constant attention.

Evidence of this is found in the bold message of Washington, D.C.'s newly opened Newseum, whose 74-foot façade emblazons the words of the First Amendment so large no politician could mistake it - or, we hope, dare to dilute it:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

It's important to remind every society what a free press and access to information can bring, how far we have come and how far we have to go.