Press freedom in the news 12/15/08

Time.com‘s “China Blog” has a post today titled “A Dark Time for Reporters in China” that outlines some recent cases of harassment and violence against journalists working in the country and quotes our statistics of journalists imprisoned for their work.

The Dallas Morning News ran an editorial over the weekend about the rise in violence in Mexico, its connection to drug cartels, and the Mexican journalists who are paying a heavy price for covering the story. The article makes mention of the cover story in the latest edition of CPJ’s Dangerous Assignments“The Disappeared,” by Monica Campbell and Maria Salazar. The Harvard International Review also had coverage of this issue in Mexico from the weekend, with a blog post that examines various options for dealing with the violence and cites our finding that 24 Mexican journalists have been killed in the last eight years. 

The Sunday edition of The San Fransisco Chronicle ran a story about how critical voices in Vietnam are speaking out through a vibrant blogging community. The paper quotes CPJ’s Asia program consultant Shawn W. Crispin regarding the government’s attempts to quash bloggers. “This legislation gives the authorities yet another legal tool to suppress press freedom in Vietnam, which is already among the region’s worst in terms of government harassment of writers and journalists,” Crispin said.