An hour later the captain said, "We still need to lose more weight. Fifty people will be safely dropped into the water with their life-jackets. This airline operates an Inclusive Equal Opportunities Policy. And we shall now put it into operation. We shall use the alphabet to guide us.
A - are their any Africans on board? Silence.
B - are their any Blacks on board? Silence.
C - are their any Caribbeans on board? Silence.
A little black boy turned to his father and said, "Dad, what are we?"
The father replied, "We are Zulus!"
But it would be ill-judged to be here today and speak about the media and its achievements without also calling to mind those who cannot be here with us today - and I do not mean just those who have had to stay in the office or go to Sedgefield to cover Tony Blair's announcement. No. Rather I mean those journalists who cannot be here because they are unwell. And we remember especially Alan Johnston, still held in captivity in Gaza.
Last week marked the fiftieth day of captivity for Alan Johnston, and on that day I was able to pray together with the clergy from the Diocese of York at our conference for Alan's safe return and release. Fifty days is a long time to be away from those you love. Speaking from personal experience, though from a totally different environment and context, the temptation to give up hope of release is always present, but the prayers and concerns of others are instrumental in being able to survive each day in captivity.
Last week also marked World Press Freedom Day, when the Committee to Protect Journalists published a worrying report highlighting those regimes whose records on arresting, jailing and even murdering journalists is quite atrocious. Countries such as Ethiopia, China, Russia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Pakistan and Zimbabwe have all demonstrated those totalitarian tendencies where the right to question and to criticise is met with the full force of the state's brutalising power.
To such States the response must be the words of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
