On behalf of everyone in the Guardian US newsroom, thank you for having our backs.

We are hugely grateful for the freedom we are granted as a reader-funded news organization, unburdened by corporate influence or billionaire ownership. Instead, we are accountable only to readers like you, a responsibility we take extremely seriously – on World Press Freedom day, and every other day.

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Around the world – and increasingly in the US – the free press is under threat from bad actors, autocratic politicians and rampant misinformation. At the Guardian, editorial independence and standing up to power are at the heart of our mission and purpose.

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