Joel Simon/Executive Director
Joel Simon was the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists from 2006 to 2021. He has written widely on media issues, contributing to Slate, Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Review of Books, World Policy Journal, Asahi Shimbun, and The Times of India. He has led numerous international missions to advance press freedom. His book, The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom, was published in November 2014. Follow him on Twitter @Joelcpj. His public GPG encryption key can be found here.
Defending fake journalists
On Saturday night, the Writers Guild of America honored CPJ with the Evelyn F. Burkey award, which recognizes contributions that have “brought honor and dignity to writers everywhere.” CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger and I accepted the award. As Paul noted in his remarks, CPJ couldn’t do its work without “the encouragement of writers and journalists…
Who is a journalist?
There are 125 journalists in jail around the world, according to the latest CPJ census carried out December 1. That’s a slight decline from the previous year, when we counted 127 journalists in jail. Those findings are included in Attacks on the Press, our annual survey, which we released today.
Remembering Eloy Aguilar
Being a foreign correspondent means living between two worlds. You are an outsider, a foreigner. But you are also insider, with unprecedented access to those in power. You become part of the country in which you live, participating in the culture and developing lasting friendships. And yet you are always apart, observing, commenting, translating, and…
The threat of soft censorship
In many countries around the world, what is known as “soft-censorship” has replaced outright repression as the favored means of controlling the media. Governments in these countries use state advertising to reward favorable coverage and punish dissenters. Sometimes they simply pay journalists to tell the story they want told.
Targeting Palestinian media in Gaza
As part of their military campaign in Gaza, Israeli forces seem to be targeting Hamas-affiliated media outlets, a practice that is of concern to CPJ. The Hamas-run broadcaster Al-Aqsa television was bombed on December 28, and then on January 5, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) appear to have hit the newsweekly Al-Risala as well its…
The debate begins in Mexico
Last month, veteran crime reporter Armando Rodríguez was gunned down in Ciudad Juárez on the Texas border, sparking another round of hand-wringing about the relentless violence that is suffocating critical journalism in Mexico. Rodríguez’s brutal murder sparked coverage in the U.S. media as well, including pieces in The Washington Post and NPR.