Haiti / Americas

Ten years ago I joined the staff of the Committee to Protect Journalists to launch the Journalist Assistance program, an initiative, as CPJ board member Gene Roberts describes, developed to establish a standing direct response mechanism for journalists facing threats and attacks. When I left the position in 2009, many people asked me what case…

In 2007, my colleague Karen Phillips suggested we do something to mark World Refugee Day. Initially planning to publish a brief statement, I set about reviewing our data for background, checking in with older journalist cases about their current situation and looking broadly for trends to highlight. As the number of cases began counting into…

Former dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier is facing some blowback after breezing into Haiti last Sunday following a 25-year absence. On Wednesday, prominent Haitian journalist and former UN spokesperson Michele Montas joined three others in filing criminal complaints against the former dictator who returned to the country Sunday, just days after the anniversary of…

One year after the devastating January 12, 2010, earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and crippled Haiti’s media infrastructure, the country’s media have made significant strides toward recovery even as they face enormous ongoing challenges. 

He’s young, unemployed and carries himself with the innocence of a man who hasn’t spent much time outside his own village. But Egyptian blogger Tamer Mabrouk is the real deal. Appearing at an international media conference in Bonn, Mabrouk’s description of chemical dumping into a brackish lagoon on the northern Nile Delta near the Mediterranean Sea…

I arrived in New York in April 2003. It was cold.The streets of Brooklyn seemed too wide to me and the buildings huge. The number 3 train would pass over and over again like a luminous monster. From the window of my apartment, I would watch this train go by. I would also watch people walk without…

Three months after the January 12 earthquake, Haiti’s oldest newspaper, Le Nouvelliste, has resumed daily publication. The April 6 issue not only signaled the resumption of daily publication, it marked a return to some normality, said Frantz Duval, the daily’s new editor-in-chief.

Three months after it opened, Haitian journalists are still benefitting from the wide-ranging services provided by the Media Operations Center, which has provided a workspace for journalists after the earthquake. While radio stations based in the capital are back on the air, the long power cuts and problems accessing the Internet are still prompting journalists…

Of the 12 radio stations in the city Leogane, south of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, only five are back on the air more than two months after the earthquake. Most stations were seriously damaged and several broadcasters are struggling to restore transmission, the head of the Leogane Press Association (APL), Julmane Saint Fort, told CPJ. Saint…

Haiti’s sole newspaper published exclusively in Creole has disappeared under the rubble of the January 12 earthquake. The Port-au-Prince offices of the monthly Bon Nouvel (Good News) were destroyed, as were the facilities of its La Phalange printing unit, which specialized in the production of Creole-language books and documents.