There were 118 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2001 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is up significantly from the previous year, when 81 journalists were in jail, and represents a return to the level of 1998, when 118 were also imprisoned.
New York, September 17, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is monitoring events in South Korea with some concern, as the government’s crackdown on alleged financial wrongdoing by the country’s major media companies is likely to have profound implications for local journalism. Despite President Kim Dae-jung’s international reputation as a champion of democracy, capped in…
THOUGH NORTH KOREA OPENED UP SLIGHTLY as its leader Kim Jong Il emerged onto the world stage, the country remained a totalitarian backwater with no independent local media and only limited access for foreign journalists. Reporters from South Korea and the West are viewed with particular suspicion and were generally refused visas until last year.…
DESPITE PRESIDENT KIM DAE JUNG’S INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION as a champion of democracy, capped with a 2000 Nobel Peace Prize, he has an uneasy relationship with the domestic press. While South Korean media are generally far more free under Kim’s administration than at any time in recent history, they remain susceptible to government interference. Tensions between…
While South Korea’s press was ostensibly free from overt pressures, its independence was compromised by complex links between media and various business and political interests. A high-profile tax evasion case involving one of South Korea’s largest daily newspapers, JoongAng Ilbo, underscored the problems of cronyism and corruption that continue to plague the press, but also…
Washington, D.C., March 25 — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported today in its annual worldwide study of press freedom that at least 118 journalists were in prison in 25 countries at the end of 1998, and 24 journalists in 17 countries were murdered during the year in reprisal for their reporting.
The Asian economic turmoil of the last eight months struck many international observers as a sudden calamity–trouble that seemed to drop from the sky like an alien invader. But in fact, the signs of structural weakness and the cracks in the veneer of financial robustness were in plain view for those in a position to…
The publication in March of CPJ’s Attacks on the Press in 1996 was the culmination of months of intense preparation by CPJ staff, investigating and verifying more than 1,000 documented cases of violations of press freedom worldwide. The 376-page volume, edited by Publications Director Alice Chasan, is the longest and most comprehensive of CPJ’s annual…