Robert Mahoney
Robert Mahoney is a former executive director of CPJ. He writes and speaks on press freedom, and has led CPJ missions to global hot spots from Iraq to Sri Lanka. He worked as a reporter, bureau chief and editor for Reuters around the world. He is a co-author of "The Infodemic: How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free." Follow him on Twitter @RobertMMahoney.
Mahoney: Biden’s Saudi policy stymies quest for Khashoggi justice
From pariah to potential partner. That’s how far Saudi Arabia has come for President Joe Biden in the five years since Riyadh sent a death squad to butcher journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The administration’s ongoing rehabilitation of the petrodollar kingdom and its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely known as MBS, seems to…
Mahoney: The lingering legacy of China’s COVID-19 censorship
One time she drew flowers on a letter to her ailing mother from her Chinese prison cell. Another time it was pictures of penguins. The drawings were a good sign. Zhang Zhan, the journalist jailed for her COVID-19 reporting from Wuhan, is maybe doing better. The 39-year-old Shanghai lawyer-turned social media reporter was one of…
Mahoney: UN can help journalists beyond World Press Freedom Day
New York, May 1, 2023–Evan Gershkovich and Jimmy Lai are about to spend World Press Freedom Day behind bars. Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal Moscow correspondent, and Lai, a pro-democracy Hong Kong media magnate, are among record numbers of journalists in prison as the United Nations marks the 30th anniversary of its special day for…
Chinese journalist held for reporting on Wuhan COVID outbreak wishes he’d done more
When reports of a novel respiratory virus spreading through Wuhan began to surface in early 2020, a few independent video journalists rushed to the city. Among them was Li Zehua, a former journalist for state broadcaster CCTV, who goes by the name Kcriss Li. Giving the slip to officials chasing down reporters who challenged the…
Opinion: Pompeo’s attack on Khashoggi’s reputation is a gift to enemies of press freedom
In the week that CPJ reported a near-50% surge in the killings of journalists worldwide, the former head of the CIA and the U.S. State Department dismissed the reaction to one of the most brazen murders of journalists in the past half century as “faux outrage…fueled by the media.” In his memoir “Never Give an…
Opinion: How the West can help the media victims of Putin’s war
Russia’s independent journalists are fleeing. That’s not only a tragedy for Russians but also for the rest of us who need to know what the increasingly isolated leader of a nuclear superpower is doing. Since sending tanks into Ukraine on February 24, President Vladimir Putin has threatened to jail anyone who dares question the invasion…
US plans to restrict foreign journalist visas would be chilling, must be scrapped
We hadn’t even finished unpacking our belongings from my assignment in Africa when the phone rang. It was a fellow journalist warning me that the director of Israel’s Government Press Office had just gone on national radio to say he intended to summon me to complain about a story. My wife looked at me anxiously….
For the sake of press freedom, Julian Assange must be defended
Nine years ago this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists took a stand on one of the most polarizing figures in journalism. We wrote President Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, urging them not to prosecute Julian Assange.
Upcoming elections could make or break Tunisia’s fledgling free press
Tunisia’s progression to a freer society took center stage this month, as journalists, digital rights activists, and tech companies gathered in Tunis for RightsCon and the IFJ congress. Tunisia has secured greater press freedom than many of the Arab Spring countries, but local journalists told CPJ that with elections slated for this year, challenges including…
Saudi control of Arab media, lamented by Khashoggi, shapes coverage of his death
It is a cruel irony that Jamal Khashoggi’s last unpublished column for The Washington Post was a call for press freedom in the Arab world. His homeland, Saudi Arabia, has spent the last three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that never happens.